You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
by greenstuff2
Summary: A love story, pure and simple ...
1. Chapter 1

All rights belong to TG and the BBC

 _ **It wasn't me that changed but you**_

The dinner party had been all her idea!

The addition of the Captain and his snotty cow of a wife definitely hadn't been part of her plans; her ambitious bastard of an old man had done that bit all on his own, only telling her afterwards what he'd done, when it was far too late for her to put the kibosh on it. He'd told her that it would help him on his 'career path' something Molly had never heard him talk about before but was convinced was total bollocks and that it had more to do with crawling up the boss's bum than anything else, something she didn't want to even think about.

Half way through the afternoon of the party she'd come to the conclusion that her menu was maybe a little bit ambitious, bearing in mind that she'd never really cooked any of this sort of food before, but after watching a lot of Bake Off and MasterChef, she'd come to the conclusion of how hard could it be? Well, apart from all the poncy decorating stuff of course which she wasn't even going to attempt. You Tube had helped a lot, together with the recipe book with nice pictures in it that they'd had for a wedding present and making a lot of lists of how to do stuff and timings and things. She would have done some dummy runs during the week before the party but she'd managed to spend every penny of their food budget for the rest of the month, plus a bit more, and had still had to send him out for more cream in case the filling curdled again as it had every bloody time that morning when she'd tried to cook the sodding lemon tart. The pastry was alright, that had cooked okay seeing as how it was ready made and frozen, it was the filling that was being a bastard.

Ian, her nine month married other half had disappeared off to get more cream and to get more wine because he reckoned that the Tesco's stuff she'd bought wasn't good enough to serve to his posh knob of a boss or to his wife, who Molly called "their Royal bleeding 'ighnesses" and Ian had reckoned that he had to go to Waitrose to get it, which meant that he'd been missing for the best part of the afternoon. She'd ended up wandering around straightening towels in the bathroom, wiping imaginary marks off the basin and taps, eating handfuls of Pringles and drinking the dreaded Tesco's wine, muttering to herself all the time about how bleeding long could it take to get to sodding Waitrose and back, and where was he for fuck's sake? He wasn't answering his phone, probably, as she knew only too well, because he could see that it was her ringing him and he knew she'd lose it completely if she spoke to him.

At times like these Molly wondered why the hell she and Ian had got married, apart from the fact that he'd had trouble keeping his hands off her, and she'd married him because he was, on the whole, quite kind, especially if he was randy and wanted to get her into bed, which was a lot of the time, and because she'd desperately wanted to get away from home. She'd known that he would give her the sort of life her mum had never had, that she wouldn't be bringing up her kids on benefits, and that she wouldn't be spending her days hiding from debt collectors or even worse, bailiffs, so, here she was, 21 years old and married to a 28 year old Sergeant in the sodding army so that she'd ended up living in a tiny, poky Edwardian terraced house off the base. Living out hadn't stopped him from continually going on at her that squaddies' wives were not in the same social whatsit as them and that she should be looking to make friends with the other Sergeants' wives, who all seemed to live in married quarters which meant that they were a sort of clique, not to mention the fact that she hated them all, mainly on principle because Ian kept on at her to make friends with them.

One of his 'lower social standing' wives and her old man, Steve, were coming to the dinner party, something that had infuriated Ian more than somewhat when she'd first told him, but Laura was Molly's best friend and she'd thought she'd most likely gonna need her moral support to get through it, in case it turned into a nightmare. The other guests were two of Ian's fellow Sergeants, a female he worked with called Jessie, and her partner, a girl that Molly barely knew but who totally intimidated her because Jessie was blonde, sleek and well spoken, with legs up to her bum, obviously middle class and well up herself, everything that Molly wasn't, and her boyfriend, Justin, who worked in advertising apparently, a bloke that neither of them had ever even met but a bloke who was bound to have a clever mouth. Laura had described Jessie as a bookend with the boss's wife, another sleek and superior blonde called Rebecca who had a reputation for looking down her snotty little nose at everybody and everything. The other couple were Jock, a taciturn Scottish Sergeant, Molly didn't even know what his real name was, and Ian certainly didn't, and his mousy wife Lydia who never seemed to say a word to anyone, so that Molly was now convinced that the whole thing was going to be an unmitigated disaster. She'd got no idea what she was going to talk about with any of them, except Laura, who was bound to get pissed and Steve, who would most likely follow his wife's example.

Ian had eventually pitched up less than an hour before the first torturer was due to show, when Molly was past saying anything apart from "Where the actual fuck have you been?" far too late to have another go at the lemon tart if it had curdled, which it hadn't by some miracle, and with only enough time left for him to have a shower and a shave, which meant that Molly had had to go and clean and tidy the sodding bathroom again and find some more clean towels. He'd insisted that the traffic had held him up, that there'd been some sort of accident, but Molly was now past caring whether anything was edible or not, she wished that she'd just gone to Marks during the week and bought ready chilled stuff, bunged it in the freezer, then done a quick defrost and microwave job as Laura had suggested and then she could have pretended it was all home cooked. Laura said that that's what she always did when her in-laws visited.

Molly prodded the chicken dish dubiously with a fork, it looked as if it was cooked, might even be a bit dry maybe but at least it wasn't still bloody and wouldn't poison anyone, the dauphinoise potatoes smelt as if they might have a touch too much garlic in them; it was just possible that she'd got confused between cloves and bulbs, but then everyone was eating them so she told herself that it most likely wouldn't matter that much.

A critical look in the mirror underlined her conviction that her dress hadn't looked nearly so short and tight the last time she'd worn it, and her 'fuck me' shoes with their 5 inch heels were decidedly uncomfortable, in fact she could hardly walk in them they hurt so much, but she'd had Laura's total seal of approval for her appearance, which was possibly a bit of a mixed blessing. Laura was wearing some long floaty ethnic type skirt which you could see knickers and legs through, a la Princess Di, and a very, very low cut black top with spaghetti straps and no bra, so that Steve kept telling her not to lean forward for anything because she had, to say the least, generous tits which she was in real danger of flashing.

The starter went down well, both Molly and Laura had agreed that she couldn't do much damage to mixed bits of melon and it was quite nice because it had been in the fridge and it was a steamy hot evening, so that even with all the windows open it was so hot in their dining room that they were all sweating and drinking too much. The dining table was a bit cramped, it only comfortably sat four or maybe six at a pinch if you didn't mind other peoples elbows, so they were almost sitting on top of each other on a mixture of chairs, some proper ones but others from the bedroom and even the one from the bathroom, and one that she'd borrowed from Laura. However it was cool in there in comparison to the kitchen which was fast approaching the environmental atmosphere of a tropical rain forest. Going backwards and forwards into the kitchen meant that Molly had drunk bottle after bottle of water from the fridge, she would have miles preferred to neck bucket loads of cold white wine, like the others, but was sure that getting hammered wouldn't be her brightest plan, however tempting it was and however much everyone else seemed to be putting away.

The only other sober person was Ian's boss, 'call me Charles', and he was driving so he was on the water as well, and he'd actually made a valiant effort to eat the dried out chicken and the potatoes that were so garlicky they made your eyes water, which was more than his bloody wife had done. She'd pushed the food round her plate and then put her cutlery down neatly on the side of it and accepted another bread roll and glass of wine, so that Laura, who was well on her way to getting totally hammered, had smirked at Molly and nodded exaggeratedly in Rebecca's direction, pulling a face. Everyone else had eaten the food, well, as much as of it as they could stomach anyway, and Ian's boss had smiled at her as she'd collected up the plates, giving her the benefit of his lovely even white teeth and his exceptionally good looks. He had the sort of looks that intimidated her, looks that made her feel self-conscious, which just made her hate him even more than she already did. By now she hated all of them, even her husband, well, especially her husband, and had totally forgotten that this had all been her idea in the first place.

Jessie had said that she was going out to the garden for an after-dinner cigarette, and Ian got up to join her, so that Molly was on the point of reminding him that he was supposed to have given up, but then decided not to. He'd drunk a hell of a lot and he always used to smoke a lot when he was drunk, before he'd so-called given up that is, so she decided she'd save it for later to have a go at him, when everyone had gone home. Justin and Rebecca were putting the world to rights about something which sounded like politics, but which could have been anything and might as well have been advanced dolphin for all the sense she could make of it, while Charles chatted with Jock who was a totally miserable sod who'd hardly said a word all evening, apart from 'yes please' and 'no thanks', mainly 'yes' to more booze and 'no' to more food, and was, in fact, so quiet that Molly had at one point wondered whether he _could_ speak, and his wife wasn't much better. She'd said bugger all and was now just sitting and fiddling with her wine glass and cutlery, looking bored shitless and still saying nothing.

Steve and Laura helped Molly clear the table and she got the dreaded lemon tart out of the fridge, and then patted herself on the back as she grated some chocolate on the top as per the recipe, thrilled that it did actually look like it was supposed to from the picture in the cookery book.

What didn't look like it was supposed to, even in the small amount of light that was shed through the kitchen window, was the sight of her husband in the shadows on one side of their tiny patio with his tongue down Jessie's throat, his hand down the top of her dress and her hand ferreting away down the front of his jeans.

Molly had gone outside to tell them that she was dishing up the pudding, and she knew from the instant she clocked them that this wasn't the first time, there was something about the way they fitted together that made it obvious that they were a couple who were used to shagging but who couldn't at that moment for some reason and she was most likely looking at why it had taken him all that time to get to bleeding Waitrose and back. It was staring her in the face where he'd been while she was at home having a grade 'A' panic and that her shit had just become real ….

She didn't say a word to anyone when she went back to the dining room and then waited until they came back, laughing and joking together about their lack of self-control in still being smokers in the face of all the disapproval, and, as they sat down ready to eat the lemon tart she'd been so proud of, the one she now felt like throwing at them, she'd tried very hard to keep a lid on the way she felt, to save it for later.

"Enjoy that did you?" She saw from his face that he knew her well enough to know that something was up and he shook his head slightly at her, dreading whatever was coming next and hoping desperately that he was wrong. "You're shagging her, aren't you?" She gritted her teeth and snarled into his face and then started yelling, unable to sit on it until the audience had gone home "and don't bovver fucking denying it, I saw you, and was that where you was all sodding afternoon, when you was supposed to be home here helping me?" Her total disregard for the audience who didn't know where to look meant that she slammed her glass down so hard that the wine slopped out and spread across the white sheet she was using as a tablecloth. That was enough to make her charge towards the door as quickly as her shoes would let her, bashing Ian's arm out of the way and ignoring him as he tried to stop her and say something to her about being wrong, and about how she should just wait a minute and that they'd talk about it later, while the rest of their guests sat in a sort of stunned and embarrassed silence.

"Molly" 'Call me Charles' murmured her name and started to get up when she pushed past him, he sat down again hastily when she screamed in his face that this was none of his fucking business and then flounced out of the room, slamming the front door hard on her way out to the street, all set to escape from the scene she'd just created.

-OG-

She couldn't walk another step because her shoes had become instruments of torture that had made her hobble after less than five minutes when the adrenalin of flouncing out had worn off, so that she'd had to find somewhere to sit down and was now sitting dry eyed on a low wall in front of someone's house, trying very hard to re-group. She didn't want to go home, well she couldn't just walk back in the house like nothing had happened in case they were all still sitting there eating their pudding. She had no phone, no money, no cards or anything, not even her keys, so she had no choice but to sit and try and disappear into the shadows created by the huge trees on the edge of the garden and to re-live what had just happened.

The longer she sat there the more her imagination went into over-drive, so that she'd convinced herself that most of them would have gone home by now so that Ian and that little slag were most probably shagging the life out of each other on the sofa, or even in her bed. She wanted to scream at him and ask him whether Jessie had ever been to the house before, maybe sleeping there when she'd been spending the night in east Ham, although sleeping probably didn't have much to do with it or whether Jessie was the reason he was often so randy when he came home, whether he'd been lusting after her when he'd tried to jump Molly as soon as he came in through the front door, and she wanted to kill him. She bit her lip and looked up at the sky and willed her angry tears to go back where they'd come from.

It was still a very hot and sticky night and she could smell barbecue from somewhere near, which reminded her that she hadn't actually eaten anything very much all evening and the smell was making her starving hungry and that drinking all that water had been a bit of a mistake because she now needed to pee quite desperately.

A couple of drunks on their way home from the pub had paid her a lot of attention and now there was some kerb crawler who'd been driving slowly up and down the road, obviously looking from side to side, and who'd now stopped his car alongside where she was sitting. She had the feeling that whoever he was he'd mistaken her for a hooker, but if he thought that this was going to turn into his Pretty Woman moment then he was going to be sadly mistaken. She was aware that the cheeky fucker had leaned across, leaving his engine running, and had opened the passenger side door so she got off the wall and started hobbling away as fast as her bloody shoes would let her, she wished now that she'd taken them off while she was sitting on the wall and had abandoned them to walk on in her bare feet.

"Molly" The voice that was calling her was familiar, as she determinedly kept on walking without looking at him "Get in the car"

"Leave me alone" She knew exactly who it was "I told you, this is none of your fucking business"

"Oh, just be a good girl and get in the bloody car" His voice sounded weary and resigned, as if he was talking to a very small and very badly behaved child "I've been driving up and down these fucking roads looking for you for well over an hour and I'm not leaving you here now I've found you. If I follow you I'll get arrested for kerb crawling, so just stop being bloody stupid and get in the car. We've had enough drama for one night without you getting yourself raped and murdered and I'd never forgive myself if they found your body in a skip in the morning"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: We had a little break, a short holiday in France where my brother lives, how come the weather was lovely before we got there, allegedly, and then it promptly p***ed down every day? Ended up spending the last couple of days getting out my lap top …..**

 **Oh and thanks to Dusty Springfield…..**


	2. Chapter 2

_**All that's left is loneliness, there's nothing left to feel**_

She got in his car with as much bad grace as she could muster and tried very hard to slam the door, which annoyingly closed with a quiet click as he accelerated away while she was still doing up her seat belt and she saw from her quick glance at his face that he had a clenched jaw and a set expression so that it appeared as if he was actually hopping mad.

"By your feet" His voice was as terse and stern as his face "Carrier bag with some stuff in it, from your mate Laura"

Molly opened the care package and found her keys, her phone and her purse together with a bottle of water, which she wished more than anything was alcohol of some sort, and her cardigan. "Thanks" She tried very hard not to sound as surly as she felt, she'd never asked him to come and look for her so she had no idea why he was being so shitty "Where are we going? cos I ain't going back there"

"Your mate's house, she insisted" He seemed to relent slightly as he looked at her sitting hunched as far away from him as the seat belt would allow "You okay?"

"What happened, you know, after?"

"Well, there was a hell of a lot of shouting and swearing, mostly swearing and especially from your mate" he snorted a short laugh down his nose "and then I left to look for you, I was the only one who wasn't too pissed to drive. So" he took a deep breath "so, what happened, what did you see?"

"They was up against the side of the house and they was snogging 'n that"

"They both said that it was just a one off, you know, a drunken snog, no big deal, very stupid but not the end of the world"

"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? And it was more than that, I know what I saw" She shrugged, wondering why he was sort of suggesting that she was over-reacting, maybe posh people didn't make a scene at their own dinner parties, no matter what.

"Where's your wife?"

"She went home in a taxi with Jock and his wife"

"And what about _her_?" She couldn't bring herself to say Jessie's name, but she didn't need to; it was obvious who she was talking about.

"She left just after you, and her bloke went running off after her, poor bugger" She could hear the amusement in his voice "It could have been because your mate was calling her a 'fucking two-bit whore' and was threatening all sorts of physical violence against her, well, against both of them really"

There was still the hint of a laugh in his voice as he pulled into the lay-by at the top of the road where Laura and Steve had their flat and switched off the engine, then turned to look at her as she undid her seat belt and got her stuff together preparing to get out and walk the rest of the way, this was all bad enough without someone thinking it was even remotely amusing.

"And you're completely sure that that's what you saw?" He put his hand on her arm to stop her getting out of the car and raised one eyebrow as he asked the question "Look I'm a lot older then you are and I know that these things are very rarely what they seem, and you've never suspected anything, you never had any idea at all?"

"Course not, why would I? … and I know what I saw. Ae you saying that I should have known or that you knew?" She could feel the tears of humiliation prickling on the back of her eyes, so that she looked up at the roof and widened her eyes to stop the threat of the tears leaking from her eyes "That you bloody knew? That you sat there, all of you, eating that awful food knowing that my bleeding husband was shagging her? Was I the only stupid cow what didn't know? What had no idea at all?"

"No of course not, there are always rumours, Molly, that's the army for you, but it probably _was_ just a bit of a drunken fumble you know, no big deal, and usually these rumours don't mean anything at all … so, no I didn't know and I'm sorry"

"Yeah, whatever" This time she did manage to exit his car, and walked a few steps, then turned and came back and stuck her head in through the passenger side door before he could lean across and close it "And you know what? You can take your sorry and shove it up your bleeding arse" She started marching off down the road then began to hobble so that he couldn't help grinning slightly as he sat and watched her to make sure that she reached the safety of her friends' block of flats, then reversed the car and set off for home, ready to face the music of Rebecca's wrath for the whole debacle of an evening.

She'd eventually made her way home the next afternoon in the spirit of getting it over with as she knew that she'd have to go home sooner or later, she had no choice, and she couldn't just stay at Laura's for ever. Their marriage had limped on for a few weeks with Ian banished to the spare room as he kept telling her over and over again that it had just been a drunken snog and that it hadn't meant anything, and that Jessie had come onto him and that he would make sure that he avoided being alone with her in the future, that he'd ask for a transfer and get himself posted away from her, that he'd never actually slept with her and that he loved Molly and that he wanted her to stay so that they could make a fresh start, and she hadn't believed a word of it. She'd pretended to once or twice, but that picture of the two of them together on the patio wouldn't go away no matter how hard she tried.

His parents had taken the break-up of their son's marriage in their stride, but then they had never liked her in the first place, had thought that she was common and loud and that she swore too much and that he was far too good for her and that he could definitely do better for himself. Molly thought that Jessie would be far more to his mother's taste than she'd ever been, even though Ian reckoned Jessie was no longer on the scene, that he didn't speak to her any more, not that Molly believed him for a second.

It was the reaction of her lot that had taken her by surprise, her mum had kept telling her that marriages had to be worked at, that you couldn't just walk away at the first hint of a problem and that allowances had to be made when people made mistakes, so that Molly assumed that she was talking about her own marriage to Dave rather than her and Ian, and her Nan kept telling her that Ian was a 'good 'un' and asking her whether she was sure that she wouldn't be sorry. In the end she'd had to tell them what he'd done, something that she would have preferred to keep to herself because it was painfully humiliating, so that her Nan had then threatened to put a contract out on him and had treated the mention of his name with the same expression on her face as if someone had walked dog shit in on the carpet.

-OG-

 **Two Years on:**

"Come on Molls, stop being such a miserable cow, a few drinks, a bit of fun, you can't spend all your bleeding time sitting in on yer own. You're off in a couple of days, make the most of it"

"I said no, I don't want to, I _am_ gonna stop at home and you can do what the bleeding hell you like, you can go off and have a few drinks, or a few hundred if you want, but I'm not going to"

"There are most likely gonna be some fit blokes there" she wheedled "It'd do you good to get out and have some fun"

"Bells, I am not going out with you on the pull" She turned to look at her sister "I'm 23 and I've already been married, and divorced and I've changed me whole bleeding life and I am not gonna go out and get pissed and pull some random bloke to have a one night stand. Not. Gonna. Happen. Okay?"

"Just because you was married to a total tosser don't mean that you have to be on yer own for the rest of your life" Bella grinned at her sister, still in her wheedling mode "They reckon it's just like falling off an horse or a bike or something, I forget which, but it's best to get straight back on, go out and enjoy yourself and give some poor bugger the benefit"

" _NO,_ which bit of no don't you get? I'm not getting back on, not now, not tomorrow, not next week and just so as you know, not ever" Molly looked at the tiny slip dress her sister had put on the bed "Bloody hell, Bells, that don't even look like a dress, it looks like a little nightie or something, so even if I was to go out with you, which I'm not, I'd be wearing me jeans and a jumper, I ain't wearing that, I'm too old and I'm too fat"

Molly looked at her 20 year old sister who was painting her eyes and putting the rest of her make-up on with a degree of envy, although Bella was just a fraction of an inch taller than Molly, she always looked much taller because she was so slight; she was built like a fairy. Molly was also small and slim, and could never be described as even plump, let alone fat, but she was muscled and toned so that she appeared well-rounded next to Bella who looked almost anorexic, but wasn't, and as if the slightest puff of wind would knock her flat in seconds.

-OG-

"I hate you, Bella Dawes"

Molly was perched on a high bar stool trying to make the skirt of the slip dress cover more of her thighs than it did at that moment, she was wearing a pair of hold it all in, 'take a few pounds off your thighs and bum' tights under the dress which, as it belonged to Bella, was a size too small and the elasticated waist band was slowly creeping down towards her bum. She knew that she needed to hoick them up or go to the Ladies and take them off, otherwise the gusset would end up somewhere round her knees when she finally got to stand up and walk, preferably to make her way out of the club to go home, and dark as the club was, it wasn't that dark.

"No you don't, you just need to have another drink"

Bella kept bringing blokes over and introducing them to her sister, telling them what she did for a living, so that they'd immediately lose the power of speech and look to escape as soon as they possibly could, while they was all so bloody young looking that Molly felt like she was middle-aged. Bella meantime was drinking for Britain so that Molly had already told her that there was no way she was going to carry her home or hold her hair out of the way when she started puking, even if that was the new tradition for a Friday night out.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

The light touch of fingers on her arm made her jump out of her skin so that she spun round to see who'd touched her, ready to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone, and then, if necessary, to kick him in the balls or at the very least clock him one with her, or rather Bella's, clutch bag that was beside her on the bar.

"God almighty, where'd you bloody spring from?"

Shit, a face from her past that she'd forgotten all about, that she hadn't seen since the night of her disastrous dinner party when he'd been trying to be kind to her, had sort of rescued her, when she'd been obnoxious and ungrateful and had marched off in a huff, a face that she hadn't expected to see ever again. Her first thought was that if she felt old in this place, then he must feel like a bloody geriatric "Wouldn't have thought this was your sort of place"

"I could say the same thing to you" He laughed "I was over there with some of the lads and I wasn't sure if it was you or not" He pointed to a large rowdy group of men on the far side of the club, a crowd who all seemed to be peering at them, trying to see who he was talking to through the crowd and the gloom, and who were making whooping noises "It's good to see you"

"Yeah and you, been a while"

"Yep, must be a couple of years" He smiled at her "White wine?"

He went to the bar to get their drinks and then indicated the noisy crowd of drunks on the other side of the room, gesturing that he was taking their drinks over and would be back in a second, leaving Molly wondering whether it would be better to just hop off the stool and disappear while he was gone.

"So, how have you been?"

"Fine thanks and you"

"Yep, fine thanks" He laughed as he mimicked her words and tone of voice "Am I still on your shit list?"

"No course not, why would you be?"

"I would have thought that everyone who was there that night would have been on it, except for, what was her name, Laura?"

"Yeah Laura, nah I didn't really have a shit list, not once I'd divorced the little bastard"

"What, you and Paget are divorced?"

She laughed "Yeah, It ended up quite, what do you call it, 'amicable'? Well, it were once I'd threatened to cut off his dick with a bread knife" She smiled at him again as he gave an exaggerated wince and then laughed out loud "Should never have married him in the first place really, can't think why I did now. But I'm sorta surprised that you didn't know, you being his boss 'n that"

"I got posted to Bicester not long after that evening, but I know what you mean about not being able to imagine why you married someone in the first place…..."

"What, not you as well?" He nodded "Shit, you and her Royal Highness are divorced?"

"Yep, there's a lot of it about" He grinned at her "Good name for her by the way"

"Yeah, sorry"

She caught his eye as he smiled at her, so that she recognised how he was still one of the best looking blokes she'd ever clapped eyes on, especially when he smiled because he thought something was a bit funny, rather than that annoyingly sympathetic and patronising smirk that he'd treated her to last time they'd met. Conversation seemed to be drying up as they both looked around the bar and Molly expected him to say how it had been nice to see her and then to say goodbye and to go back to join his mates any minute, which meant that she could escape and go home.

"Are you here on your own? I was going to ask you if you'd like to go and get something to eat with me."

"Nah, that's really nice of you, but I'm here with me sister" She tried not to show her surprise as she carefully didn't mention that her sister was one of the group of girls making a lot of drunken racket at the other end of the bar and then decided she would tell him after all because it gave her the perfect excuse for cutting short their conversation "That's her over there, I think I'd better go and sort her out"

"Oh come on, she looks as though she's set for the evening, let's get out of this place, it makes me feel about a hundred" He looked across at Bella and then at his army mates on the other side of the room "I'd rather go and get a curry or something" He started laughing "Come with me? I know you like spicy food"

"That's not funny" she giggled and then thought about the fact that she was hungry and that this was the perfect way to get out of the place and it wasn't as though she'd been enjoying a shit-hot evening up till then. She could always say she'd changed her mind about eating when they got outside. "Okay, thanks I'd like that, but I just need to go to the loo first" He put his hand out to steady her as she got off the high stool to go to the Ladies; she needed to make a decision about whether or not to ditch the tights and risk the dress being a bit, or quite a lot, on the tight side, or whether to hoick them up. She settled for the hoick because Bella would never forgive her if she split a seam on her dress and then went back to join him.

"God, I hadn't realised how small you are" Molly was wearing ballerina slippers instead of the five inch heels she'd been wearing the last time she'd seen him.

"Yeah well" she looked down at her feet "I can walk in these, and anyway it's not me, it's you what's too tall"

He laughed as she turned and waved goodbye to Bella indicating that she was leaving and he put his hand in the small of her back to guide her towards the exit. Her sister made some very embarrassing and obscene gestures followed by double thumbs up signals so it was obvious that she thought Molly had pulled, leaving her extremely grateful that Charles had his back turned and wouldn't have seen them.

-OG-

 **Author's Notes: Thank you for the lovely welcome back, and for your kind comments. The first chapter ended up being very long, much longer than usual because I wanted to paint a really clear picture setting the scene of their first encounter so that the rest of the story can get going (does that make sense?). Hope you enjoy Chap 2.**


	3. Chapter 3

_**You don't have to stay forever, I will understand**_

They strolled along looking for a curry house or a Chinese or somewhere they could eat without a reservation and settled on a Bengal curry house which was dimly lit with the obligatory red flock wallpaper and large plastic flowers in vases, but it also had empty tables and an extensive menu pinned up outside which they agreed would do very nicely.

Ordering the food and drinking ice cold beer and giggling at the bowing and scraping of the waiter who might well be the owner, he was so obviously deeply grateful for any custom on a Friday that came before the pubs and clubs turned out when all his patrons would be rat-arsed, had led to them talking about their favourite foods, and Charles had shuddered when she told him that her favourite breakfast was a bowl of coco-pops and told her that she might as well eat the contents of the sugar bowl, when Molly had giggled and said that sugar only came in bowls in posh houses, it came in a packet in theirs. They'd argued about the merits of their favourite films, Charles accusing her of only liking rom-coms so she'd retaliated by accusing him of only liking violence and had said that she was surprised, cause she'd thought he'd like all that arty-farty stuff which she would have guessed was the sort of thing that posh people like him would go for. He'd been horrified, saying that he'd had more than enough of that sort of crap when he was married to Rebecca, so they'd moved onto favourite books, which Molly didn't really have an opinion on, she admitted that she only really read chick-lit, and then they moved onto soap operas, which Charles hadn't got a clue about.

They reached some common ground when they'd started discussing their favourite music, so that after a while she realised that she was having a really good time, even though she'd had to go to the loo and ditch the tights that were descending again and take a chance on the dress not splitting down a seam when she'd finished stuffing her face with naan bread and poppadoms.

"How old are you, Molly?

"23, why?"

"That's a lucky number, isn't it?"

"Is it? Weren't that lucky for Becks were it?" He looked puzzled as he raised an eyebrow "David Beckham? Footballer? He had 23 on his shirt at Real Madrid" She giggled as she saw the penny drop and he apologised and said that of course he'd heard of David Beckham, but that he didn't really know that much about football and asked her whether she liked rugby.

"Dunno, the only thing I know about rugby is that there are lots of sweaty men pushing each other about and me Nan always says as how none of the current lot have got thighs as good as Will Carling, whoever he was"

"Molly" Charles expostulated, then pulled a face as he saw the small bite of her lip as she grinned at him and he wondered whether her supposed ignorance was actually all a wind-up.

They had a fairly intense discussion about the role Lady Luck played in your life, something that Charles believed in absolutely and which Molly was extremely sceptical about as she reckoned that you make your own luck and from there the argument moved onto predicting the future, or all that fortune telling bollocks as Molly described it with a huge dollop of scepticism, whether you could talk to people that were dead or if it was possible to read the tea leaves or the palm of someone's hand. The argument lead to Charles pretending to be able to read her future as he picked up her hand and traced the lines on her palm with one finger and then turned her hand over but carried on holding it as he stroked the pulse point on the inside of her wrist with his thumb, actions that caused goose bumps to break out all over her body, goose bumps which didn't disappear when he kept on stroking her knuckles as he talked, staring into her eyes with the deepest darkest brown eyes she'd ever seen, so that she'd had to search very hard to find something neutral to talk about. She needed to try and change the charged atmosphere that was suddenly between them.

"You've got a little boy, haven't you?" He nodded "What about him, is he living with his mum?"

"Sam, he's not so little now, he's nearly 11 and yes, he does live with Rebecca, well, during the holidays he does, but he's at boarding school the rest of the time"

"Sounds a bit shit, does he like it?" Molly sounded incredibly dubious even to her own ears.

"I think so, he doesn't say much" Charles smirked slightly, he was still holding onto her hand "He doesn't speak that much, but he's fluent in grunt"

Molly giggled and said that in a year or two Charles would look back at the grunting and think that it had been great because Sam would wake up one day and decide that his dad was a complete dickhead who knew jack shit about anything.

"That's something to look forward to" Charles pulled a face "You sound like you know what you're talking about"

"Yeah, got two teenage brothers, mind you, they've got a point with my dad"

"That must be nice, having a couple of brothers and a sister"

"Three brothers and two sisters, there's six of us" She giggled as he raised his eyebrows at her, signalling a degree of disbelief "How about you?"

"Nope, there's just me"

"Lucky you"

They wrangled over the bill which Charles insisted he was paying because he'd invited her and anyway, he owed her a meal, which made Molly snort with disbelief and look sharply at him to see whether he had a sarcastic smirk on his face, which he hadn't. He put his arm round her shoulders as they walked back towards the club and argued again because Charles wanted to flag her a taxi while Molly insisted that she'd get the bus which made him raise his eyebrows and look at the tiny little dress she was wearing, he obviously thought she was under-dressed for travelling late at night on London Transport.

"Can I call you? Maybe we can do this again?" He smoothed her hair back from her face and smiled, bringing back the goose bumps, and chewing the inside corner of his bottom lip "I had a really good time this evening"

"Yeah, I'd like that, I had fun too" She looked up into his brown eyes and suddenly wondered where he was staying that night.

"Give me your phone" He held out his hand and took it, brushing her fingers with his as he did so, then programmed her number into his phone.

As they stood looking at each other supposedly waiting for the bus, he bent his head and kissed her lightly on her cheek, then moved to kiss her mouth as if he was asking a question, kissing her with far more purpose as she kissed him back until they were interrupted by the arrival of the bus. For a few seconds she considered not getting on it, but he kissed her lightly on the cheek and promised to call, then winked at her as he stood watching and she sat and looked out of the window and thought about how much fun it had been to snog someone at a bus stop like a bloody teenager, and then wondered what the hell she was doing going home on a bus when she should have been walking to wherever it was he was staying. All that bollocks she'd spouted at Bella earlier, about never, ever again vanished as she wondered how long it would be before he called her and how much she hoped that her new job wouldn't get in the bloody way and whether or not it would be easy to get the time off if he called, because something told her that he was definitely going to.

-OG

"Private Dawes?"

"Yes Corporal"

Molly stood in front of him trying not to show that she was shitting herself with nerves. All the way up on the train she'd been regretting travelling in her combat gear, she'd been so proud putting it on to go to her first proper posting and had then ended up wishing she'd just been in her jeans and a 'T' shirt and wearing her old converses. She'd been hot and self-conscious on the train, sure that everyone was staring at her and had kept wondering whether her mum was right that the country was stuffed full of random terrorists who were just looking for a target in an army uniform so that they could cut her head off.

Catterick Camp was much emptier and quieter than she'd expected, even for tea time on a warm, sunny and still Sunday afternoon and those soldiers who were around on the empty parade grounds seemed to be moving about in a leisurely stroll, not the scurrying, purposeful rushing about with a sense of urgency that she'd sort of imagined.

"Right, here we are"

The Corporal stood back to let her go through the swing doors onto a long corridor which had doors opposite each other at regular intervals. They had walked from the guard room to the accommodation block in complete silence, and Molly was hot and breathless from struggling to keep up with him laden as she was with all her kit, especially up the three flights of stairs.

"Women's quarters" He nodded his head indicating the corridor then consulted the piece of paper in his hand "Number 37, along there somewhere" He handed her an envelope with a set of keys inside "Don't lose them, karsies and showers at the end, the rest of your section floor below, main parade ground 07.00 tomorrow, don't be late, any questions?"

"No Corporal" Molly actually wanted to say 'yes, hundreds Corporal' but he didn't seem to be all that friendly as he barked out information, so she decided to keep her mouth firmly shut, she'd been warned over and over during basic about the importance of first impressions.

"Have I seen you before somewhere?"

"No, don't think so Corporal"

She certainly didn't recognise him, was sure she'd never seen him before, but then she would probably have had trouble recognising herself in a mirror at that moment, she wasn't even sure of her own name, she was so nervous. He shook his head as though he didn't quite believe her and walked off, leaving Molly taking a deep breath before she set off down the corridor to look for the right number and feeling more lonely then she ever had in her entire life, worse even than her first day at basic. At least then they'd all been new and green and unsure what to expect but had been bunking in together whereas here she was totally alone. The room was tiny, almost cell-like with just a bed, a small side table, a locker and a chair, a wash basin with a mirror over and nothing else, not even a rug on the tiled floor, just army blankets on the bed and one thin looking pillow. It was also stinking hot and stuffy so that Molly dumped most of her stuff on the bed and opened the window, propping the door open with one of her bags, and then ran the cold tap in the wash basin and splashed her face which was running with beads of sweat.

"Hello" A tall fair haired girl dressed in a vest top and tiny, tiny shorts poked her head round the door "Just arrived? I'm next door, I'm Jackie"She smiled, a really friendly smile "Shitting hell it's hot in here"

"Yeah, I just got here, I'm Molly" She smiled back with relief that not everyone in Yorkshire spoke in such an unfriendly manner.

"Get your stuff squared away and get all that bloody clobber off, 'T' shirt and shorts will do" She laughed "Then I'll show you where the mess is, we'll get something to eat and I'll give you a quick tour if you like"

"Thanks Jackie"

Molly couldn't have put into words how grateful she was to find such a friendly face and Jackie's whistle stop tour included how to find everything she might need to know in the first few days, the offices, the sick bay, the gym and the mess hall, not that Molly took much of it in. She had already done basic and medic and two lots of mission specific training, but she still felt completely self-conscious as she followed Jackie around and then into the mess hall and got herself a very dull and limp looking salad which she picked at. She wasn't in the least bit hungry so she sat there with food she didn't want, feeling as if everyone was looking at her as an imposter who shouldn't, by rights, be there, but in fact everyone ignored them completely as they sat at their table, swigging from cans of diet coke and swapping life histories.

-OG-

Molly nodded and smiled at the ranks of blokes who were jostling each other and bantering as they lined up on the parade ground, putting on her super-confident face as she told herself that she was not going to puke any second, it was just nerves that were making her feel so sick, as she looked at the section she'd been attached to and then smiled tentatively at the Corporal who didn't look any more approachable in the cold light of day than he had done the previous afternoon. She hadn't slept a wink, it was very hot and stuffy in her room, despite the wide open window and Jackie had advised her not to leave her door open at night, but to go to the stores in the morning and do her best to blag a fan as most of the girls who lived on the corridor had already done.

The Corporal didn't introduce her to any of the others, just indicated with a nod of his head where she should stand at the end of the second row and then turned away to bollock one of the others for the state of his boots, so that Molly was exceedingly grateful she'd polished hers until you could see your face in them. The bloke that was getting the bollocking from the Corporal didn't look as if he gave a shit, which surprised her, it had been drummed into her repeatedly that squaddies had to be really careful not to put a foot wrong in case they got a reputation or got put on a charge.

"Two section" the Corporal shouted "Attention"

He was talking to another officer as he stood some way off, and then turned and walked towards them all lined up at attention, so that he didn't see her straight away and Molly's stomach churned again with shock and nausea. Even standing to attention supposedly looking straight in front of her, she couldn't help that her eyes kept being drawn towards him as though he was a magnet, the last time she'd seen him was two days before and they'd been snogging the faces off each other at a bus stop in south London like a pair of teenagers and now here he was taking the bloody salute on the parade ground and she was one of the people who were saluting him.

The only clue he gave that he'd caught sight of her and recognised her was a barely detectable hesitation and a very slight widening of his eyes as he looked along the ranks and then they were told to stand easy as he started to witter on about something and Molly tried very hard to concentrate on what he was saying, but couldn't. Once again he might well have been talking advanced dolphin for all the sense she was making of it, and she couldn't for the life of her work out what he was doing there, she could have sworn that he'd told her he was stationed at Bicester, not here, but thinking straight was beyond her right now because she was too busy concentrating on trying to dispel the roaring in her ears.

"Medic, Captain's office straight after scoff"

Corporal Kinders had dismissed the parade and everyone was making for the mess hall for breakfast, although Molly was convinced that she would never be hungry ever again and that any food she did force down would probably make a very rapid return visit. Charles hadn't acknowledged her at all, hadn't spoken to her, hadn't smiled or nodded or done anything else to show that they knew one another, he'd been completely stern faced the whole time, so that she'd almost had to pinch herself as a reminder that they did actually know each other.

The lads on the other hand, all went out of their way to introduce themselves and to welcome her, although she hadn't got a hope in hell of remembering all their names or their nicknames because she was sure that those were what they were giving her, no-one could possibly be called Smurf or Nude-Nut, could they?, and they'd immediately called her Dawsey. One or two had already started with the malingering tales she'd been warned to expect, most of what they said was so obviously a piss-take that she'd ended up laughing with them as she told them that as far as she knew, you don't get malaria from a gnat bite in north Yorkshire, but that she would look it up to make sure, and that the sleeping sickness some of them reckoned they were suffering from was more likely to be caused by a hangover or a late night.

The order from Kinders to go to _his_ office filled her with a mixture of dread and stomach churning, butterfly-filled anticipation as she tried hard to swallow a cup of particularly horrible stewed tea past the dry lump in her throat, and then gave up.

-OG-

 **Author's Notes: Thanks for your reviews, they are what keep me going because without them, and I'm sure I'm speaking for all the ff authors who publish stuff on here, we always imagine that no-one else is reading what we write.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Left alone with just a memory, life seems dead and so unreal**_

"Yes Corporal" She thought for a second "Um, sorry, where is that Corporal?"

"I'll take her" A ginger-haired soldier who was so tall he dwarfed her volunteered as some of the others loudly questioned his ability to find anything, including his own arse, insults which he completely ignored "Hello darlin, I'm Mike, this lot call me Mansfield, and don't take any notice of them, they're just jealous because they didn't think of it first"

"Hello, and thank you, I'm sure I'd get lost if I tried to find me way on me own"

One of the others shouted that she'd almost certainly get lost if she let him show her the way and they'd all laughed, so that Mansfield gave them the finger, but he didn't seem to be upset or angry at the way they were constantly taking the piss out of him, he just laughed and started to walk with her towards the office block, then slowed his pace down to allow her to keep up, as she walked alongside him on legs which didn't seem to altogether belong to her.

"I keep thinking I've seen you before somewhere, darlin"

"Nah, don't think so, I've never been to Yorkshire before"

"Right, here we are, just through 'ere, then down there, see you later" He was still pulling a quizzical face as he walked away, looking over his shoulder at her, obviously puzzled as he was convinced that she was familiar.

"Thanks Mike"

She took a very deep breath and started walking down a corridor of offices that seemed endless as she looked for something that would tell her which was the right one, and wished that she'd got Mike to take her all the way to Charles' office. It felt very strange to think of him as the Captain, the boss, the CO and not as Charles who had watched her have a melt-down at a dinner party and had then rescued her, Charles who'd talked and argued and teased and laughed with her as they'd eaten Indian in an almost empty curry house, not to mention the Charles who'd kissed her till she was breathless in the street while she waited for a bus.

In the end it was easy to find the right room, it had a large plate on the door with his name on it, so she took another even deeper breath, consciously dropped shoulders that were so tense they were up around her ears, and knocked as loudly as she dared, waiting until she heard his "Come in" then opening the door with a hand that was slippery with sweat.

He was standing with his back to the door looking out of the window at the parade ground below and just turned his head slightly to glance at her, then looked away again, his jaw clenched and his expression as set as it had been when he was pissed at her the night he'd been driving around the streets on his search and rescue mission.

"Shut the door"

His voice was brusque and stern as he kept his back turned waiting until she'd done as she was told, then waited for another second or two before he spoke, making Molly's mouth dry up with the excess adrenalin that was coursing through her blood stream and robbing her brain of coherent thought.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know"

"What do you mean you didn't know? You didn't know you were coming to Catterick in a couple of days? Is that what you're telling me?"

"No, course I knew that, but I didn't know you was anything to do with Catterick, did I? You told me you was stationed at Bicester" She couldn't help the slightly aggrieved note that had crept into her voice, after all she wasn't in the wrong here, she hadn't done anything, he was the one who appeared to have been lying "I mean, how was I supposed to know you was here? You never said"

She tried to smile at him and failed miserably as he turned and sat down at his desk then picked up a pen which he was turning round and round in his fingers as he looked at her.

"I didn't think I had to, Jesus Christ, I didn't even know that you'd joined up let alone that you were going to be our new medic" He adopted a very obviously sarcastic tone of voice as he mimicked her words "You never said" He pulled a face then shook his head "And I didn't know that you were you, did I? That the Molly Dawes that we were expecting was you, I mean I only ever knew you as Paget's wife" He grimaced then began tapping the pen on the table as he looked at her with a wry expression on his face "Lady Luck certainly seems to have pissed off right now, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, I mean no, I mean I s'pose "

"You do know what this means, don't you?" She shook her head, how the hell was she supposed to know what he was talking about "You're in my direct command, I'm your boss, which means that we can't be friends, it's completely against the bloody rules, army regulations make it impossible for us to have any sort of" he paused looking for the right word "relationship"

"That's a shame, I mean, okay, if you say so" She wasn't sure what she was saying, her mouth was flapping without her brain being engaged because actually she hadn't known any of it, the subject had never come up, but she believed him, she was sure he knew what he was talking about.

"It's not what _I_ say, Molly, I don't make the rules, it's what the army says" He took a deep breath, shook his head and raised his eyebrows as he looked at her "And it might be best to keep the fact that we know each other to yourself otherwise it might be a bit difficult with the others"

"I don't think I can do that because I think some of them are a bit sus that they've seen me before, a couple of them have already said they think they know me from somewhere and it ain't gonna be long until someone remembers where they saw me. I don't want them to think that I'm some sort of slag that you picked up in that club on Friday night, Charles, so I'm gonna have to tell them that I know you from when you was Ian's boss"

"Alright" He smiled properly for the first time since he'd looked at her so that his eyes crinkled at the edges and she had a sudden impulse to go across and hug him as he shook his head "Oh, and Molly, it's Sir or Boss, not Charles" He laughed as she mouthed the word 'sorry' and then added, looking down at his hands which were still busy with his pen, almost as though he was speaking in spite of himself "It's good to see you" He swallowed, paused, then looked up and smiled, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "Now piss off, Dawes"

"Yes Cha….. Sir"

She turned and went to the door and was halfway through it when a thought occurred to her, so that she stopped and turned back to where he was sitting watching her with a strange expression on his face as she left his office.

"Boss?" He lifted one eyebrow as a question mark "Sorry, but where exactly do I piss off to?"

He laughed out loud as he looked at the digital clock on the wall and told her that at this time of the morning she should be running a so-called minor illness and injury clinic for the sick and sorry for themselves brigade who would come to the sick bay looking for a plaster or an aspirin or maybe a bit of kissing it better, although not literally, and that he would get Kinders to come and find her when the clinic was over so that the Corporal could give her the heads up on the routines, the timetables and the schedules. She smiled her thanks and went to leave as he spoke softly, his stern face and voice having vanished, yet again as if it was in spite of his best intentions, as he asked her whether she was okay and whether she knew where she was going, so that she was even more grateful to Jackie as she nodded and left, but couldn't help wondering whether he'd meant it when he'd said that they couldn't be friends.

As she made her way to the Sick Bay, she realised that he still hadn't told her how come he was here and not at Bicester or why they'd all been in that club in London last Friday, they'd been a long way from home.

-OG-

It seemed as if every member of the section had a medical issue that morning, most of them, if not all, imaginary and based on plain curiosity about their new medic or the innate need to take the piss out of any new member of the squad. It didn't take her any length of time at all to start giving as good as she got and had just told two of them that the symptoms they'd described didn't need her to check them out, she would just save time and refer them straight to the nearest 'clap' clinic as a matter of urgency because it sounded very like advanced syphilis to her, which meant that they needed immediate treatment otherwise things would start dropping off any second.

She had just finished updating medical records, and had decided not to include the galloping knob rot that they weren't actually suffering from, or at least she hoped they weren't, when Kinders appeared in the doorway and smiled at her, a surprise in itself bearing in mind the unfriendly demeanour he'd shown so far. He came in and started to give her the information that Charles had promised, then, with his voice full of curiosity, as though he didn't want to but couldn't help himself, he blurted out "You never told us that you and the boss know each other"

"Well I don't really, and anyhow, no-one asked me"

"So, how do you know him then?"

-OG-

The lads clustered round her, reeling from Kinders' revelation during their gym session that she knew the boss because her old man used to be one of his Sergeants down south and that was why they'd recognised her because the boss had been talking to her in that night club. There had been a subtle but definite change in the way Kinders spoke to her since their conversation earlier when she'd told him about Ian and about how she knew the Captain, and Molly was sure that his new manner had more to do with the his concerns about her opening her gob to the boss than any change of heart in the way that he actually thought about her.

"We didn't know you were married, you never said and you're not wearing a ring"

"No, I'm not married any more" She had no intentions of telling them what had happened, what Ian had done because she still found it humiliating even after two years, but she had to give them something to explain her single status and it would have to be something which would stop them going on and on about it until they got her to tell them the truth, so she picked her old favourite of wielding the bread knife "He might walk a bit funny now cos I took a bread knife to him, you know, his bits, but it's alright cos I got away with it"

"What?" "You didn't" "You're having us on" "Why?" There had been a moment of complete silence followed by the noisy clamour of all of them talking at once, as they made it plain that they were not entirely sure whether to believe what she'd just told them or not.

"Well, you know what it's like, boys, I couldn't help it" She smirked as she tossed her head "I really had to, I couldn't stick the way he looked at me one morning" She turned her back and flounced away from them, knowing that they probably didn't believe a word she'd just said but wouldn't ask any more questions in case she started telling them all about the tricky subject of PMS. She was very tempted to look back to see whether they'd been taken in by any of the lies or whether they would recognise that they were being seriously wound up "So, you lot had better bleeding watch out, hadn't you?"

-OG-

They'd apparently been taking part in some sort of ceremonial stuff and that was why they'd been in London the previous week, something that had finished in the early afternoon of the Friday, so that they'd decided to stay on and do a bit of sightseeing which had, for some reason, included the inside of a slightly sleazy night club. She'd done her best to be subtle and to ask how long Charles had been stationed there, but subtle was wasted on them, if she wanted to know she'd have to ask them straight out, and anyway any idea she'd had about the boss wanting to pursue any sort of friendship between the two of them had vanished completely by the end of her second week with 2 section. She had totally revised her opinion of him and decided that he was without doubt, a grade A, cast iron pig. An even worse pig than she had thought he was when she'd first met him on the night of her dinner party, so that she hated him now with even more passion than she had that evening. The smiley flirty bloke she'd gone to the Indian with and who she'd fancied something rotten when he'd kissed her goodnight had vanished, and the man who was now wearing his face was totally different in every way to the one she remembered, meaning that she was out of her depth around him.

It was bad enough having to do 5km runs with full kit, with no-one, least of all him, making any allowances for the fact that she was tiny and the medic's kit was heavier than anything any of the big strapping squaddies were carrying, but on top of that he kept yelling at her all the time to put some effort in, to keep up for fuck's sake, which, try as she might, she just couldn't do. The worst bit was when he made sarcastic comments about how she might as well be wearing her stilettos, comments which she knew referred to the shoes that she'd been wearing that first evening when she'd hobbled away from his car, the ones she could hardly walk in, comments which were designed to amuse the lads, but which made her want to answer him back, just after she'd thrown something at his head.

Running 5km wasn't the only time he seemed to take great delight in picking on her, shooting practice had started out being just as bad, although once he had been forced to accept that she was actually far better than most of the others he'd had to back off so that she'd wanted so much to stick her tongue out at him in a childish display of defiance and yell "Suck it up and get used to it".

Her first weekend leave came as a huge relief so that she'd got on a train with something approaching euphoria at the thought of getting away from all of it for a few days so that she'd smiled sweetly at the lads who'd invited her to join their pub crawl on Friday and Saturday and told them it was really nice of them, before turning it down in favour of a weekend with Laura and Steve. Even spending most of her weekend off on a train was better than seeing the same old faces and listening to the same old banter and piss taking all weekend, or even worse, running the risk of running into _him_ anywhere, it was hard to remember that it had only been a few short weeks since she'd wanted him to call her, that she'd been worried that she wouldn't be able to meet up with him, now it was the last thing on earth she wanted.

-OG-

The weekend with Laura hadn't turned out to be the boozy trip down memory lane she'd expected and was looking forward to, Laura had just found out that she was pregnant and was totally furious at being 'caught' as she described it, blaming Steve in ever more colourful language each time she yelled at him for being a total dickhead, complaining that it was his fault that she felt sick all the time and couldn't drink, seeming to forget that she'd had anything to do with any of it at all. Steve, being completely used to his wife's mood swings, even when she wasn't pregnant she was volatile to say the least, took absolutely no notice, just kept saying he was sorry and hugging her, and being his usual phlegmatic self so that he almost restored Molly's faith in men, faith that had taken a fair battering with first Ian, and now, even though she would deny it absolutely if she was asked, Charles. The lads didn't count as they were all still obviously a long way off being grown up enough to be described as men.

-OG-

The weeks flew by and she'd sort of got used to be yelled at by Kinders and, when he was around, Charles, although there always seemed to be a tiny hint of amusement when he was telling her off, so that she no longer took it personally, in fact, she didn't take much notice of it at all. She remembered occasionally how surprised she'd been when Fingers' hadn't seemed to give a shit when he was being bollocked about his boots on her first day, she wasn't surprised any longer, she was now very well practised in the art of the 'yes sir, no sir, three fucking bags full sir, you're _always_ right sir' technique that he'd employed that day, and, if anything, she was now better at it than the rest of them, she'd had more practice.

-OG-

 **Author' notes: Thank you for your kind reviews they mean the world to me!**


	5. Chapter 5

_**I can't help but love you, but believe me I'll never tie you down**_

They were getting ten days leave at Christmas and New year, which was, apparently, almost unheard of, so that Brains had opened a book on what was going to go wrong to ruin it, everything from the weather to world war three breaking out, and Molly saw for herself the fatalism of soldiers as they told themselves and each other that if it could go wrong, it was odds on that it sodding well would. She planned on spending a couple of days at home in east Ham with her family and then the rest with Laura and Steve, Laura was now moaning, morning, noon and night according to Steve, about everything to do with being pregnant, and could, again according to Steve, really do with some company that wasn't related to him.

The platoon Christmas night out and piss up was on a freezing cold Friday evening a couple of days before their leave was due to start and they'd booked for all the sections together to have a Chinese at a restaurant that hadn't hosted one of their parties before, so that the manager hadn't yet barred them for life. Molly was wearing the little black dress she'd worn for her ill-fated dinner party, it was the only really dressy dress that she owned, but the 5km runs and the endless press ups followed by laps in the gym while she was being yelled at to speed up had paid dividends so that she'd lost all the extraneous curves she'd once had and was so slim and toned that the dress skimmed her body without clinging anywhere, but, if anything, the 5" heels hurt her feet even more than they had before. Despite what the boss said it had been a very long time since she'd last worn stilettos so that walking was a bit of a challenge.

She'd done her best to work out where the best place to sit would be, she wanted to be as far away from the Boss and Eggy and all the other bossy bastards as she could possibly manage, so she'd plumped for one chair in from the end of the long table, assuming that they would spread themselves around towards the centre of the group, most probably on both sides of the table and all facing each other, but well away from her.

Five minutes later she was bitterly regretting that decision and telling herself that she should have waited until everyone else was sitting down before she'd decided where she was going to sit and then made her move, because somehow she'd ended up sandwiched between Charles and Fingers who was already so pissed that he looked as though he would end up face down in his sweet and sour before very much longer. He seemed to get his second wind and tucked into his meal with enthusiasm once he'd been to the Gents and thrown up, which made Molly shudder in disbelief, although she'd been with the section long enough now not to be surprised at anything.

"Jesus, you've got thin, are you eating enough?"

"Course I am, it's not the bleeding food"

"What is it then?"

"It's you bullying me and making me run faster carrying all that crap all the time" She giggled, wondering if she was pushing her luck, he could well turn into his usual miserable sod and bollock her for insubordination any second or put her on a charge or something, although she sort of knew he wasn't going to.

"Sorry, I'll make it my New Year Resolution to stop if you ask nicely" He had dropped his voice a little to make sure that no-one else could hear their conversation.

"Yeah, I'd like that a lot, thanks" She put as much sarcasm in her voice as she could manage then turned round and grinned at him and was rewarded by a slight flush of colour in his cheeks "Was that nicely enough for you?"

He didn't answer just caught his bottom lip in his teeth and turned slightly towards the centre of the table putting his arm along the back of her chair and she knew from the tone of his voice as much as from what he was saying that he was flirting with her. She was very tempted to play the ice cold indifference card, he'd been such a pig since she'd arrived in Yorkshire, but then felt his thumb lightly caress the nape of her neck under her hair as he whispered 'sorry'. She wasn't sure what he was saying sorry for, whether it was for being a bit of a bastard, a bully, or for touching the bare skin on her back, an action that had made her give an involuntary shiver, or if, in fact, he hadn't touched her deliberately at all and it had been an accident he was apologising for, who knew? But she couldn't look at him even though she could feel his eyes on her, so she took a large swig of wine, followed by another, and then looked with surprise at her empty glass. Fingers immediately filled it up to the brim but Charles put his hand across and slid the full glass along the table away from her.

"I'm cutting off your alcohol supply until you've eaten something; at least eat some prawn crackers and a spring roll or some rice or something"

"What?"

"I mean it, Dawsey, I don't want you to end up like he was an hour ago" Charles nodded indicating Fingers as she tried hard to get mad at him because he was acting like the alcohol police but couldn't, she found that she quite liked the novel sensation of him looking out for her, on top of which he was leaning forward slightly and exchanging 'pleasantries' with the lads at the other end of the table at the same time as his thumb was back lightly caressing the nape of her neck. She was sure that it was definitely not an accidental touch this time as she did as she was told and ate some of the food that she'd forgotten all about and that was now rapidly congealing on her plate.

-OG-

"Come on Cinders, I think it's time to get you home"

It was almost 2.00 in the morning and they were still dancing, Molly had long since lost her 'fuck me' shoes somewhere and had both her arms round his neck so that she was hanging onto him, something that he was enjoying far more than he knew he should be and that he was in all sorts of trouble. All that time he'd spent in the last few months exercising rigid self-control in respect of a girl with beautiful green eyes and long dark hair, a small girl who was absolutely and totally forbidden to him and now here he was drinking and dancing with her on their own in a club in the small hours of the morning.

They had all moved on from the Chinese Restaurant, much to the manager's relief, and onto some Northern Soul Club that Fingers and Brains and some of the blokes from 3 section had been to before, but the lads had long since bailed, either because they were almost paralytic and had been 'helped' out by their mates or the ones who could still walk had gone to find somewhere with more available totty, as Dangles had described it, having taken one look at the average age of the unaccompanied women in the club. Eggy had gone home after the Chinese, probably to avoid having to play nursemaid to a bunch of squaddies who were off their heads, so it was now just the two of them as they danced to 'Tainted Love'.

Molly had adored everything about the club, the music, the enthusiastic crowd, the dancing with Charles, even with their mismatched heights, and the singing along and his obvious enjoyment which had matched hers; he'd also matched her drink for drink.

"Hey, here" He waved one of her shoes in front of her as she beamed and walked lopsidedly toward him, she was wearing one shoe which she'd found under a table and had put on in case she lost sight of it again, and had then located her coat and bag on a chair, waving them triumphantly at Charles who hadn't got a coat with him.

"You know something, Dawesy? I think you're drunk" he laughed as she struggled to stand upright to put her other shoe on, then grabbed hold of him as she tried not to overbalance.

"No I'm not, well not that drunk anyhow, and you've drunk as much as me, so how come you're not?"

"I'm bigger then you are, means I can drink more" He laughed and grabbed her hand as she stuck her tongue out at him "That's what you get for being a half-pint, anyway I am pissed, but only on the inside" they turned to make their way towards the exit "Let's go and get you a taxi, Cinderella, I'm over the limit so I can't drive you home"

"You can't drive me home anyway, it's against them stupid rules, remember?"

There was a fairly small group of smokers standing just outside the door and looking onto the street, so Charles put his arm round her to forge a path through the crowd, and then saw what was grabbing their attention, what they were all looking at. It had snowed during the time they'd been inside the club, snowed very, very heavily by the look of it, so that the street had been turned into a white wonderland, pavements and road covered in a thick blanket of snow so that you couldn't see where the kerbs were, waste bins and street lights covered inches deep in snow and there were still huge white cotton wool snowflakes falling so fast that it was difficult to see across the road. Nothing was moving, the world was silent with no cars going up or down the road, and all the parked cars had been turned into giant white mushrooms.

"Wow, it's snowing" Molly rushed into the street tilting her face up to the sky so that the snowflakes fell thick and fast onto her eyelashes and cheeks and her hair was quickly covered with a mesh of white as she turned towards him with an ecstatic grin on her face "I love snow"

"Yep, me too" He didn't know which bit he liked most at that moment, the snow, which, like her, he loved, or the excitement that was written all over her face "Come on, let's get up to the main road, see if we can get you a taxi" He looked at her feet "Can you bloody walk in those or am I going to have to carry you?"

"Course I can walk, you ain't carrying me"

She took two steps into the pristine snow, and promptly fell over, her feet sliding from under her so that she sat down, then sat there in the snow laughing so hard that she couldn't get up despite the fact that her bum was getting frozen as well as soaked as he tried his best not to join in her laughter, then gave up so that he had an equally hard job lifting her to her feet.

Walking towards the main road, or in Molly's case slipping and sliding and hanging onto the reassuring bulk of Charles, showed her that she didn't actually like snow nearly as much as she'd thought she did. Coming from London meant that the snow she was used to was the odd couple of centimetres which was gone in a few hours, not snow like this where there was more than 6" which was very hard to walk in and which came over the tops of her shoes and froze her feet to solid blocks of ice so that she was shivering violently.

"I think I've got bleeding frostbite"

"Soft southerner, come on buck up, you're in the British army"

"Fuck off"

He laughed as he stopped and offered to carry her again, volunteering to give her a fireman's lift.

"Nah, you might slip over or drop me or something"

The main road was as still and silent as the side roads, it was far too late for any busses still to be running, but Molly had counted on there being taxis, as there would have been in London, even dodgy mini-cabs, but there weren't any, there weren't any people about either, the whole world was apparently tucked up asleep under a thick blanket of snow which was still falling and no other idiots were out in it.

"Come on, we'll have to go to mine, it's a bit of a hike from here, can you walk?"

"What do you mean yours? I thought you lived in barracks"

"Christ no, not when I can help it, I've got a flat" He smirked at her "Don't look at me like that, I know it sounds a bit … inappropriate, but you can get warm there at least and have a hot drink and then get a bus or a cab in the morning seeing as I'm not allowed to drive you home, or if you've got any better suggestions let's hear them, but I'm telling you now, if you prefer to sleep in a bus shelter, you're on your own"

The trudge seemed endless to Molly, her strappy shoes were sopping wet and useless for walking in as they were never designed to be worn in the wet, let alone in more than 6" of icy snow when there weren't even someone else's footprints to walk in, so that each step was agony. Her feet were now so cold that they felt as if they'd already turned blue and were about to drop off as he stopped again and asked her if she was okay, then offered to carry her for a bit because they still had a little way to go. Her pathetic little protest of "I'm fine, don't worry about me" meant that this time he just ignored what she said and lifted her up, linking his arms under her bum so that her legs were wrapped round his waist and her arms were round his neck, her head tucked into the side of it as if he was carrying a child.

"God, you're heavier than you look" He was beginning to puff slightly so he stopped for a breather "You know this'll make my old war wounds play up, don't you?"

"What old war wounds?"

"Where would you like me to start?" He snorted a laugh down his nose to show he was winding her up.

"You ain't got any war wounds, well not according to your records anyhow"

"Looked me up did you?"

"I'm a medic; I have to know these things" She giggled against his neck "Put me down then"

"Nope, I'll struggle on" He tried very hard to sound as if he was being a martyr "I'm an officer and a gentleman, remember?"

"You're a prannet"

"Probably, I'd be able to tell you if I was one of those if I knew what a prannet was" He snorted again "Now shut up and stop making me talk, I can't talk and walk and carry you at the same time"

-OG-

"You should probably have a bath to thaw out" He had put her down when they'd arrived at the small block of flats and she'd managed to climb the stairs without whimpering out loud the way she wanted to, but she was now staring at him with unmitigated horror, there was no way she was getting naked in his flat, not even to thaw out her terminally frostbitten feet.

He was watching her over the rim of his coffee cup as she stood drinking tea and looking out of the window at the snow which was still falling heavily and building up on the balcony rail outside the picture window which made up one wall of his studio flat. The main room was enormous with wooden floors and thick rugs, huge sofas, trendy furniture and a couple of mega brightly coloured splodgy modern paintings which were hung on the white walls, one of which she'd stood in front of for ages because she loved it for its colours and one where the colours made her eyeballs itch, but she hadn't got a clue what either of them were supposed to be, apart from looking as though a kid had most likely done them.

The room was immaculately tidy, every bit of his stuff was hidden behind big white shiny doors so that there was no clutter anywhere not even on the work surfaces of the modern open-plan kitchen which was off to the side at one end or in the bathroom where she'd just used the loo and which was off to the other. There was a half wall made of glass bricks which divided the sitting area from the bedroom, a bedroom area which seemed to Molly to have attained a huge significance all of its own as she'd looked around, they'd gone from an easy chatty 'taking the piss' type of friendly banter to an air that was fraught with silence and some unspoken tensions which were now robbing her of the ability to find a comfortable topic of conversation as she kept catching his eye.

She had gone through absolute agonies when he'd given her a pair of his warm woollen socks to put on and her feet had protested violently as normal service had been restored, turning them from bluish white and dead, but still painful, to throbbing scarlet and purple which was so agonising that she couldn't help yelping. He'd offered to rub them to get her circulation going but she'd screamed 'no' and accused him of being a miserable sadist who enjoyed seeing her suffer so that he'd laughed and backed away from her then raised both hands in defeat as he found one of his sweaters for her to put on instead of her wet dress, a sweater which reached mid-thigh length on her. When she turned her back to pull her dress over her head and then pull the sweater on he realised that she wasn't wearing a bra, something that made him have to swallow very hard.

"You look like a little waif"

"Well at least me bleeding feet don't feel like someone's chopping them up with razor blades any more" She sat down next to him on the sofa and pulled one of his size 11 socks off her size 3 foot "Thanks for the loaner"

"You're welcome" He lifted her foot onto his lap and held it in both hands running his fingers along the sides as she complained loudly that he was tickling her "Your feet are so tiny, aren't they?" He was almost whispering as he leaned forward and kissed her mouth very fleetingly, just a soft brush of lips, a kiss that lasted for less than a second, but his gentle touch almost opened the floodgates of whatever the feelings were that had been building between them all evening.

-OG-

 **Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews, I'm sure that I'm not unique when I say I always get faintly paranoid while I'm waiting to see what you think. Chapter 6 will be uploaded at this time on Monday, anyone who regularly reads my ramblings will know that I've promised my significant other that I would concentrate on him and our RL at the weekends and leave my parallel universe alone.**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Believe me, believe me, I can't help but love you**_

"You know what's weird?" He left her foot on his lap and lifted the other one up to join it, moving his hand to her face and running his thumb over her cheekbone then cupping her chin as she shook her head, huge green eyes never taking their gaze from his "I've spent my whole life in the army, it's all I ever really wanted to do and I've always lived by their rules, and then I meet you, and because we're in the army I'm not allowed to touch you, it's forbidden, it's against all those rules and I've spent months reminding myself of that fact every single day and yet here you are in my flat, and all I can think about is that you're here and that I've never wanted anything in my life as much as I want to kiss you right now"

"How drunk are you?"

Her question was filled with a sort of awkward embarrassment, not sure how to respond or even whether he was being serious or not, he didn't look drunk and he didn't sound drunk and she wasn't nearly as drunk now as she had been when they'd left the club, the long struggle in the cold and the snow had sobered her up, but she didn't know whether he'd sobered up as much as she had, or whether it was still a bit of the booze talking.

"I'm not drunk"

Suddenly she didn't give a stuff about whether or not he was 100 % sober, or about any of the stupid rules, she did what she'd wanted to do ever since they'd gone for that Indian all those months ago, just leaned forward and kissed him, somewhat clumsily to start with, and then, as he started to kiss her back, ferociously as though she couldn't get enough of him, as he clasped her hips in his hands and lifted her onto his lap so that she could feel him hard against her. They were still locked in the kiss as his hand crept under his sweater, the one that he wasn't wearing, and cupped her swollen breast finding her peaked and aching nipple with his thumb, so that he stopped kissing her mouth and bent his head to take her into his mouth nipping at her gently over the wool of the sweater, stopping only to pull it over her head and throw it on the floor, leaving her sitting on his lap wearing only her pants and one of his socks.

"You are so beautiful, I knew you would be"

Molly had been told that before, her husband used to say it to her all the time when he wanted sex, but she'd never been told before by someone who sounded so much as though he meant every word, as they kissed again and again, kissed for long, long minutes, as their hands started to explore each other and she stroked his chest and his back as his breathing got more and more shallow and ragged. She pulled his sweater and shirt over his head and dropped them on the floor as he rested his hand on her hip bone.

"I haven't, not since Ian" She bit her lip and frowned as she spoke and he wished more than anything that he could say the same thing to her, but he couldn't, and he wasn't going to lie so he swallowed hard "We won't if you don't want to, there's no rush is there?"

"It's against the bleeding rules, you mean"

"Yep, there is that" He tried very hard to laugh, to sound as though it didn't matter, although laughing was the last thing he felt like doing "But I think it might be a little bit late to worry about following the rules, don't you?"

"What's the time?"

"I didn't mean that sort of late, but it's nearly four o'clock, do you want to go to bed? Try and get some sleep, I mean"

-OG-

"You shouldn't still be here; you know it's breaking all the rules, don't you?" He laughed to show he wasn't serious, stroked her face and hair then pulled her close. She'd been fast asleep when he'd woken up and after he'd resisted the enormous temptation to pull her even closer, or even on top of him, he'd just laid there with his arms round her contentedly aware of the strange, almost magical, reflected light of a snowy morning and watched through the window where he hadn't closed the blinds the night before as the sky lightened slowly. It was early and it was still snowing, fat lazy flakes but a lot less ferociously than it had been the night before, although the sky was heavy with the greyish purple of a lot more snow to come, making it feel cosy and warm inside.

"I know" She didn't open her eyes as she snuggled down under the duvet tightening her arms round him and glorying in the warmth of his body against hers, naked except for his boxer shorts.

"I'm bloody glad you are though" He snorted a laugh as he began to kiss his way across her collar bones then up to her mouth, nibbling on her bottom lip, so that she stretched like a cat in a patch of sunlight and wrapped her legs round his waist, feeling his body's instant response.

They hadn't actually made love the night before, well not full on 'proper' sex, although in the end they might as well have done. Positioning themselves a good foot apart in the bed in complete silence and pretending that they were going to try and get some sleep hadn't lasted very long at all as she'd turned away from him and he'd put his arm round her and pulled her close, spooning himself against her back, then complaining that her feet were still bloody cold and offering to warm her up. His fingers had gone nowhere near her feet but had taken her to the point where she was straining to get as close to him as she could, turning onto her back so that they could kiss each other. After a while, as far as Molly was concerned it could have been two minutes or ten or it could have been an hour, she had no idea how long it was, just that they were no longer kissing but were now breathing heavily into each other's open mouths and she could feel him hard and insistent against her thigh as she whispered "What about you?" so that he'd taken her hand and put it round him. He'd put his own hand on top of hers showing her what he wanted as she stiffened, then pressed against him shuddering as she went into ecstatic freefall, her toes curling and her muscles clenching in waves of intense pleasure.

It took a while before her brain started working again enough to know that he had come too as he unfurled her sticky fingers from where she was still clutching him and grabbed a handful of tissues off the bedside table for her so that she'd whispered that she felt like a bloody teenager, making him laugh as he raised his eyebrows and said that it was quite obvious that in comparison to her he'd led a _very_ sheltered life, so that she'd responded with a quick slap on his arm and a giggle and a "yeah right, course you did" He'd kissed her on her closed eyelids as they'd both drifted off to sleep, arms round each other in a warm and still somewhat sticky haze of contentment.

"We're going to have to do something about this; you know that, don't you?"

"That's sort of what I had in mind" She moved against him, making her meaning quite clear even though she was still wearing her knickers.

"That's not what I meant" he smirked as he kissed the tip of her nose "Really nice idea though"

"What did you mean, what can we do?"

"Well, we can't do anything for the moment, it's bloody Christmas, but one of us will have to get transferred, get posted, because if anyone finds out about this it'll wreck our careers, yours, and mine as well for that matter"

"We haven't actually done anything have we?"

"Haven't we? I'm not sure the army would agree with you on that one" He laughed and ran one finger over her bottom lip, amused by the serious expression on her face "And I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep my hands off you in the future"

"I promise I won't tell anyone if you don't, and anyway we could just lie, I'm quite good at that" She bit her lip, thought for a second, then corrected herself "No, actually I'm not, I'm pretty shit at it"

He ignored what she'd said and carried on thinking out loud "I don't know whether it would be best to wait out for a bit, I'm going to get shifted soon anyway, I'll be made up to Major in the next few months and then I'll definitely get posted again, might even get deployed somewhere"

"I hope you're just saying that, because I don't want to be here without you"

"You'll still see me, we'll see each other whenever we can, when we get leave or time off and I won't be your boss anymore, so I won't keep yelling at you either"

"I don't mind you yelling at me, I know you don't mean it"

Somehow the warm cosy mood had been wrecked as far as Molly was concerned so she moved away from him, swinging her legs out of the bed and then, looking out of the window at the snow, wondered whether the bus back to the Garrison would be running yet or whether she'd be able to get a taxi, after all she was supposed to be on duty this morning, her leave didn't start until tea-time tomorrow.

"Hey, what's the matter? Come on tell me"

"Nothings the matter" She shrugged "I've gotta get back if I can, I'm not on leave till tomorrow and I don't want Eggy asking me loads of bleeding awkward questions that I can't answer"

"Does he give you a hard time?" He frowned as she shrugged "I'll have a word with him"

"No, you bleeding well won't, not unless you want the jungle drums to start beating, he's a terrible bleeding gossip and we wouldn't want anyone to find out about us, would we? Anyway I can look after meself"

"I know you can and I won't say anything to Kinders if you don't want me to, but I can see I've upset you and I don't know what I've done" He got out of bed and moved towards her, wanting to put his arms round her, completely at a loss to know what had just happened, but she moved away and put on her dress so that he threw her his sweater.

"Here, put this over the top otherwise you'll bloody freeze out there" He put on his jeans then picked up the other sweater which was on the floor and pulled it over his own head "If you wait a second, I'll take you, I'll drop you round the corner so that the blokes in the guardhouse won't see me and you can walk in from there if you must, that's if you can walk in the snow in those bloody shoes"

"No, no need for you to bother yourself, I'll be fine" She had struggled into her coat and put on the offending shoes, which were still soaking wet and even more desperately uncomfortable than they had been before, and was now wrestling with the latch on the front door as he was speaking. She managed to tug it open as he started looking around for his car keys "The shops will be open soon and I can most likely buy a pair of wellies if I have to"

For some reason it had become vital that she put as much distance between them as quickly as she could even though she couldn't put into words why she was suddenly so upset with him and even more upset with herself. All she knew was that she could hear his voice in her head telling her that a drunken fumble was no big deal and that they didn't mean anything. Feeling each other up like a pair of horny teenagers seemed to her, at that moment, to be the epitome of a drunken fumble, and that the promise of some sort of secret long distance relationship consisting of the occasional repeat performance made it all feel even worse.

"Will you stop talking bollocks, in fact just shut up, Molly, you're not fine, but if you won't tell me what the actual fuck is wrong, what I've done?" he shrugged and raised both hands in a frustrated gesture. He was beginning to sound like the extremely irritated and impatient Captain James that she'd been treated to so often in the past few months "At least wait there while I find the bloody car keys otherwise you might have to walk all the way back to barracks if there's no bus running, which there won't be, and there won't be any taxis either, so you just wait out a minute, and that's a fucking …."

"Order" He whispered the last word because when he'd turned back to make sure that she was listening to him and doing as she was told, she'd gone.

-OG-

The snow had disappeared from the landscape once the train got to the Midlands so that even in the dark she could see that there was no trace of the weather they'd been having in north Yorkshire and Molly now felt a bit daft wearing the bright yellow "Daffy Duck" wellies that had been all she'd been able to buy the previous morning, and she'd only been able to get them because she had such small feet and the kiddies section still had some stock.

The phone had beeped with his text just after she'd got back to barracks, a journey that had seemed to take hours. She had felt like a compete skank as she'd queued for a non-existent bus, she hadn't brushed her hair or washed her face and hands, or cleaned her teeth, so she was pretty sure she smelt horrible with panda eyes, she hadn't even had a cup of tea or been for a wee and was wearing a dress that was clinging to her bum where it was still damp from falling over the night before. She couldn't help feeling that everyone in the bus queue would think that the phrase 'walk of shame' had been written just for her, then, when the bus finally appeared, she'd had to sit there with bare feet inside the wellies that she'd been forced to buy, so that she'd spent the whole journey shivering on a freezing cold bus with feet that were so frozen she couldn't feel them. The bus crawled along the snowy road and made very hard work of the hilly bits, so that she'd begun to think that they'd all have to get off and push, and apart from anything else, she was dreading the moment when she'd have to get off the bus and walk through the main gates past the guys on guard duty who, she was pretty sure, would take one look at her and have a bloody good snigger.

"R U OK? C"

He obviously didn't intend to waste any words, not that she could blame him in the circumstances, as she waited until her eyes had stopping prickling from the total bollocking she'd had from Eggy, to send a reply. The Corporal had threatened to cancel her leave even though she'd tried her best to explain why she'd only just got back, leaving out all references to the identity of the 'friend' she'd stayed over with the night before. She now knew for certain that it was personal with him, that he was picking on her, because some of the others had arrived back just after her and they'd all had a bloody good laugh, all lads together, with no hint of any of them being in hot water, or of any threat that their leave might be cancelled. Either he hated all women, women soldiers or it was just her, and Molly no longer believed that it had anything to do with her prior friendship with the Captain, but that it had got far more to do with the way that Charles had made sure that no-one could possibly imagine that they were friends or that there was any attraction between them, and that he'd overdone it a bit.

"GR8 M"

'Great' wasn't exactly how she'd describe the way she'd felt as she'd got into a hot bath to thaw out her feet and had screamed in agony as her circulation had returned, or about the way she'd run away from him. Hanging her dress on the outside of the locker door, after seriously considering binning it along with the sodding shoes, she'd made the decision to replace it as soon as she could afford to, it was now beginning to feel like it was jinxed by Charles' Lady Luck, she'd hardly worn the combination over the years but every time she did she seemed to end up running away from someone.

-OG-

Seeing her mum and the kids and Nan, even her dad, for Christmas was lovely although she'd had to threaten Bella to shut the fuck up or she'd be sorry when her sister kept going on and on about the tall bloke that Molly had picked up in that club the last time she was home, taking no notice whatsoever when Molly stupidly told her that she hadn't picked him up, that she'd already known him. She was then petrified that Bella would go and say something in front of their mum, or even worse, in front of Nan, and that was all too likely knowing Bella. If her mum and grandmother found out then they'd want all the gory details and would never let her hear the end of it.

The strains of _Auld Lang Syne_ had barely died away and Molly couldn't wait to go to bed, which was definitely a first for her. She'd been drinking all evening but still felt sober, as she'd chatted and laughed and circulated, trying her best to look as though she hadn't got a care in the world when all she wanted to do was to be on her own and think about whether or not she dared send him a text, maybe just wishing him a Happy New Year or something. Even though it would be a compete hiding to nowhere, there was a chance it would make her feel a bit better about being alone and back somewhere where she'd thought she was happy once upon a time.

"Happy New Year M"

"Ditto Cx"

His instant reply made her smile and hug her pillow so that she'd got out of bed and put his sweater on, the sweater that he'd loaned her, the one she _was_ going to give back to him, at some point, and just for a minute she didn't feel quite so lonely. She sniffed at the sleeve, wondering whether it would still have his smell on it, but disappointingly, and most likely because she'd slept in it so often, it just smelt as though it could do with a good wash.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your kind reviews, I am so glad so many of you enjoyed their first real encounter. Don't give upon them just yet ….….**


	7. Chapter 7

_**Don't you see that now you're gone, I'm left here on my own**_

It was the night before she was due to return to Yorkshire that they dropped the bombshell, and it was obvious from the way they told her that there had been loads of discussions and arguments as to how to tell her and when. Ian and Jessie were apparently getting married, and rumour had it that Jessie was pregnant, and Laura and Steve had known about it the whole time she'd been staying and had been reluctant to tell her, scared of how she'd react. It wasn't that she was upset, and it wasn't that she still loved him, she didn't, or that she was jealous that they were going to make a life together, she wasn't, she couldn't think of anything worse than being back living with him, but she had this feeling that life was passing her by, that everyone else was coupled up and having babies that, in Laura's case particularly, they didn't appear to want.

-OG-

She'd finally asked Laura whether she could wash his sweater, if she took it back to barracks with her there was nowhere she could do it with any degree of privacy and Laura had immediately turned into the Spanish Inquisition being thoroughly relentless until Molly caved in and talked about him.

"Okay, alright, I slept with him, you know, spent the night with him, and before you ask, it was after the Christmas party and it wasn't because I was pissed, I did it because I wanted to, okay?"

"But Molls, he's old, ancient, I mean, I know he's good looking, well okay, he's bloody gorgeous really, but he's years older than us, far too old for you"

"Thanks mate" She bloody knew that telling Laura about Charles was a sort of exercise in stupidity, that there was no way she should be doing it, it was totally dumb because Laura had met him and knew who he was and couldn't keep a secret if her life depended on it "Anyway, he's not that old"

"Yes he is" Laura thought for a moment "How old is he?"

"Dunno"

It had all poured out, what had happened and about how her head had been all over the shop the next day as she'd convinced herself that it didn't mean anything, and how much she'd wanted it to, so that then she'd had to beg Laura to promise her faithfully that she wouldn't tell a soul and how it would be a complete fucking disaster if she broke that promise. In the end Laura told her that although she loved her to bits and that she was her very best mate, ever, she was going to stab her through the heart with her nail scissors if she didn't shut the fuck up.

Of course she wasn't going to tell anyone, as long as Molly remembered that she and Steve had no sex life to shout about any more and that she had to have a full description of every last detail of what had gone on immediately, and she meant _every detail,_ because what she really, really needed to know was whether what she'd heard about shoe sizes and other things was true.

"Yeah, like I'm gonna tell you? In your dreams mate"

"A dream is about as good as it gets these days so the least you can do is share"

"Get lost" They ended up creased over with laughter until Laura complained that she was about to wet herself, that her bladder control was shot to buggery and that Molly should take it as a warning not to let some bloke knock her up.

-OG-

The snow had disappeared from the roads and had virtually disappeared from the fields as she looked out of the train window on her way back north, there were just some dirty streaks of white on the hills and under the hedges and it was bitterly cold, the sky grey and overcast so that Molly shivered even though it was perfectly warm on the train. She was still a bit upset about Ian and _her_ and with Laura for keeping it a secret until it was almost time for her to go back to Yorkshire, and she was a bit depressed at the thought of getting back into the groove of army life.

On the whole she still thought she'd done the right thing by joining up the way she had when her life had gone to shit, she hadn't been able to think of anything she'd rather do and she still couldn't now, she loved being a medic and she loved the lads in her section, despite bloody Eggy who she definitely didn't love, but somehow, and she didn't know why, she felt restless and unhappy, lonely, as though there was something missing.

-OG-

"Dawes, Captain's office, come on move yourself, at the double, chop, chop"

"Yes Corporal"

Molly was determined not to give him any excuses to pick on her so she smiled sweetly and adopted the passive-aggressive stance that Steve had taught her when she'd been whinging about the little fucker being a scumbag. They'd been back for a couple of weeks now and Charles had been missing so that she hadn't even caught a glimpse of him since their night together and hadn't heard from him since his New Year text. She'd really missed seeing him about the place, or that feeling that she might see him at any second, which showed her exactly what it would be like when he got his promotion and was posted somewhere else, and how right she'd been to say that she didn't want to be there without him. She didn't even know if they were still friends, let alone anything else, she'd behaved like some sort of raving nut job that morning so that he'd probably gone down on his knees and thanked whoever he believed in for his lucky escape, most probably his mate, Lady Luck.

-OG-

He'd spent almost an hour weighing up the best way of explaining what was going on and was still not sure how she was going to take it. He took up his familiar stance of turning his back to the door and staring out of the window, then took a deep breath when he heard her knock and another when he called for her to 'come in'. She knew as soon as she looked at him that he had something to tell her that she wasn't going to like.

"You okay, Dawsey?"

"Yeah" Oh shit, she was back to being Dawsey, she'd been Molly before Christmas; this did not look very promising, although at least it hadn't been plain Dawes.

"Did you have a good leave?"

"It was okay, I s'pose, you?" She wished he would just get on with it, whatever it was; she was so tense that her shoulders were creeping up around her ears.

"I heard about Ian, sorry"

"Thanks "she tried and failed to smile as she shrugged her shoulders doing her best to indicate that it was no big deal. To say that the atmosphere between them was strained would be a complete understatement "I'm sorry Boss, but could you just get it over with, I can see there's something"

He took another deep breath and bit his bottom lip as he looked at her, then shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he had when he was worrying about something so that Molly's nervous anticipation increased ten-fold.

"This really isn't the right place for us to be having this conversation, but things being the way they are ….. well …" Shit, shit, shit here it came, she closed her eyes and held her breath as he rubbed his neck again and then looked straight at her. She could see that he was also trying to smile, a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "and don't call me boss, not when we're in here on our own"

"Just say it"

"Well, everyone's going to hear sooner or later, but I wanted you to hear it from me, I'm off, posted, deployed"

"What?" That hadn't been what she'd expected to hear at all and for a moment her mind had gone completely blank so that she couldn't think what to say, then burst out "Has it got anything to do with me, you know with what happened?"

"No, of course not, and Molly, we really need to talk about what happened, but right now is probably not the right time or the right place, but I would never have said or done anything without discussing it with you first, I wouldn't go behind your back" He paused and took a deep breath "I'm going to Iraq in a few days, going to do some stuff to help them try and sort out these IS buggers"

"That sounds a bit shit" She tried hard to make sense of what he'd just said as she chewed the corner of her mouth and widened her eyes, a trick she had perfected when she needed to control her urge to cry. He so obviously regretted what had happened between them, and Molly never, ever cried if she could possibly help it "Is it dangerous?"

"Nope"

"You're lying, aren't you?"

"Listen, it's only for three months"

"Why don't you want to answer me? It's bloody dangerous isn't it?"

"It's not for ever and we can talk when I get back and then maybe we can sort out a lot of things"

He still hadn't answered her question, and they both knew that that was because he didn't want to admit that it was dangerous but he didn't want to lie to her either "You do know that this isn't what I had in mind when I said that one of us should move and that we'd still be able to see each other, be a bit bloody difficult when you're here and I'm in Iraq"

"Yeah"

"Sure you're okay?"

She shrugged, not sure what he expected her to do or to say, of course she wasn't okay, there were a million questions she wanted to ask, starting with 'Do you care about me at all?' and 'Will you miss me?' But she couldn't ask him any of that because the timing was shit and he most likely wouldn't tell her the truth anyway, not when he was just about to leave. This was all so far from any of the scenarios that she'd fantasised about for when she saw him again that she hadn't got a clue how to react, screaming 'Don't go' and 'It's not fair' probably weren't the best ideas she'd ever had.

"Are you having a piss up tonight? You know, farewell do with the lads"

"Nope, can't tonight. I've got to sort out my stuff, pack everything away before the tenants arrive, but I may be able to do it tomorrow" He tried again to smile "Don't look like that, we'll go out for drink tomorrow night, I'll make the time, and I'll still be around for the next couple of days then I'll see you when I get back"

"Okay"

-OG-

"It's me, I thought I'd come and help you pack?"

It had taken all the guts she possessed, and some that she didn't, to get on the bus and go to the block of flats she'd stayed in on the night of the Christmas party, and then to find and press the right button on the entry pad by the front door. His name wasn't on it, she knew that was most likely for security reasons, but it meant that she had to guess then press and hope that she'd got the right one. It had felt like a good idea when she'd decided to do it and she'd told herself that if he wasn't home or he told her to piss off, which was all too likely, she'd just go back to barracks although she was desperate to spend some time on her own with him before he went to Iraq, she needed to apologise for behaving like a total lunatic that last time. Tomorrow all the lads would be around so it would be impossible to have any sort of private word, but if the worst came to the worst she'd just have to write him a note.

The reassuring sound of the entry phone as he buzzed her in meant that she let out the breath she'd been holding and pushed open the door, knowing that at least she'd got the right flat and thanking heaven that her feet weren't killing her this time. The closer she got to the right floor and the right door, the more doubtful she got as to what the fuck she thought she was doing, if he'd wanted to see her and to talk about what had happened before he went off to Iraq he'd have said and he hadn't, and he hadn't said a word when he'd buzzed her in. She was almost at the top when she seriously wavered and thought about taking the easy way out, then sat down on the concrete stairs while she tried to decide whether it would be best to just turn tail and go back down, it would certainly be easier.

"Hey"

He sat down next to her on the stairs, close enough for his arm and thigh to be touching hers, and he was grinning all over his face as he looked at her, but she couldn't look at him.

"Hey yourself"

"I thought you'd come to help me pack, you can't do that sitting out here"

"I'm good at packing, had loads of practise cos the rest of my lot, you know me mum 'n that, are shit at it, so I've been doing it since I was a nipper"

Summoning up every bit of her courage, she glanced sideways at him, hoping that he couldn't feel her trembling through the arm and thigh that were still touching hers and saw that he was staring straight ahead, not looking at her, not reacting at all to what she'd just said and with a serious, almost stern expression on his face.

"Are we okay?" It took all her courage to ask the question and she almost didn't because she was so scared of the answer, he must already think that she was some kind of nutter.

"I don't know, are we?"

"I asked first"

He got up and took her hand, pulling her onto her feet and then turned and tugged her behind him towards the open door of the flat.

"If you think that I'm going to tell the most beautiful girl that I've ever met how I feel about her while we're sitting on the bloody stairs with all the neighbours listening in to every word, then you've got another think coming, so come on, shift your arse"

"You just did"

-OG-

He didn't close the door after they almost fell through it, just tried to kick it shut without lifting his mouth from hers, unwilling to stop kissing her for long enough to let go and close it, despite the fact that they were almost devouring one another, frantic passionate kisses that were without thought or reason, just intense hunger, which meant that anyone who came up the stairs or onto the landing outside would get a ringside view. She dropped her bag as he pushed her coat from her shoulders and she wriggled free so that it fell on the floor closely followed by one of her shoes as he put his hands under her bum and lifted her off her feet so that she wrapped her legs round his waist.

It was only when her feet were back on the floor and they'd stopped kissing long enough to begin to delve under each other's clothes that Molly giggled and told him to wait a second as she went over and closed the door, and then they began to pull each other's clothes off in earnest, throwing them in a heap to join her coat, and kissing each other's bodies bit by bit as soon as they were revealed.

This time there was no question of them behaving like a couple of teenagers and it was everything she'd ever wanted it to be and a lot she hadn't really expected. For the first time in her life the world seemed to break around her, shattering into a million pieces as she grabbed any bit of him she could reach and hold onto as she experienced her very first honest to goodness, real life, forget faking it, orgasm from full on proper sex. She'd always thought that the sort of heavy petting that they'd done before was _it_ for her, that the way she'd felt then was the only way, and even that was usually far, far better when she was on her own, but nothing else had ever worked. Sometimes she'd felt herself getting close, as if it was finally going to happen, especially when she'd been with Ian, but then it didn't, the feelings just disappeared, vanished out of reach, so that she'd always ended up faking it.

"You alright?" Initially she couldn't speak, just couldn't find any way to say any words at all as she curled up against him and he stroked her hair, her face, down her spine and then back up towards her face. He grinned as she explained just how alright she was.

"Most likely a fluke" She moved closer until she was laying half on top of him and kissed a trail across his shoulders and down his chest towards his navel and back up to his neck again as he put his head back to encourage her to kiss him round to his ear.

"Just give me a minute and we can find out" He laughed "You are staying aren't you?"

"Can't, I've gotta go in a minute, Eggy will slaughter me if I'm late in the morning"

"I'll fucking slaughter him if he does" He pulled a face, brown eyes beseeching her "Stay with me?"

"For a bit"

-OG-

"Stop it" He whispered as she butterfly kissed him down his chest to his navel, then across to his hip and then lifted her head and smirked as she started to kiss him again and began to move down, so that he took a deep breath and lifted her up trying to wrest back some control of what was happening "I really need to know"

"Know what?"

"What happened, why you freaked like that last time you were here?"

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your kind reviews. I really hope you enjoy this chapter, please let me know.**


	8. Chapter 8

_**I close my eyes and count to 10, and when I open them you're still there**_

"Nothing happened really, but I just kept hearing your voice in me head when you told me that a drunken fumble were no big deal, that it didn't mean nothing"

"When did I say that? I never said anything like that"

"Yeah you did, when I was in your car that time" he turned to look at her with a frown on his face as if he was trying very hard to remember "I know I'm a bit of a muppet sometimes but when you said about us maybe being able to see each other if we could find the time, and it all being secret, it just felt like that's what had just happened, that we'd just had some sort of fumble, you know, we was a bit pissed and it was Christmas and we'd been to a party and what with all the snow 'n that" She shrugged "And that we might gonna maybe do again, sometime … maybe"

"It was never anything like that" He swallowed and tightened his arms round her, trying to get as close as he could "Shit, Molly, that's not what I meant at all. Ever since I met you" He shook his head "I've wanted to look out for you, from when you fed me so much garlic that no-one, and I mean no-one, would come within a bloody mile of me for about a week" Molly bit her lip and tried not to giggle "I just wanted to ….. you were so sweet …."

"Me? No-one's ever called me sweet before"

"Yeah well I didn't know you then, did I?"

"Oi"

"You going to let me finish?" Molly nodded"Right, where was I? When all the fucking fireworks started I just wanted to pick you up and put you in my pocket and get you out of there, take you home with me, I was so worried about you being upset and walking around the streets wearing a dress where I could see your knickers"

"Liar" She looked at him and pulled a face, then smiled at the worried frown on his face "I don't believe you could see me knickers"

"Molly, all I know is that when I found you that night, you weren't exactly pleased to see me, were you? Told me to fuck off if I remember rightly"

"I never, did I?" She thought for a moment, then laughed "That don't sound like me at all"

He didn't reply, just raised his eyebrows at her as if he'd asked a question and was highly sceptical about the answer he'd just been given.

"Sorry, but if you liked me 'n that, why didn't you ever try and, you know, see me after that night?"

"I thought you were married, didn't I? I didn't know you and Paget had split, no-one told me, and anyway you probably would have told me to fuck off again"

"No I wouldn't, well, yeah I might have done I s'pose, I went off blokes for a bit"

"I couldn't believe it when you turned up here, I was all set to call you after that Indian and the next thing I know I go out to take the salute and there you are, lined up with two section on the fucking parade ground, Christ, of all the bloody shitty luck"

"What, me being here?"

"You know exactly what I mean"

"I don't want you to go. I know it sounds really selfish 'n that and you know I don't want you to go anywhere where it might be a bit dangerous, where you might get hurt, but I'm a bit worried about being here without you because of Eggy" She bit her bottom lip "The way he is, I mean, with me. Do you know why he don't like me, why he gives me such a hard time?"

"I don't want to go either, but as far as Kinders is concerned I've got no clue, he's never said anything to me but maybe he just doesn't like gorgeous girls with green eyes and long hair, or maybe he likes one of them a bit too much"

"Oh shit, now you really are freaking me out"

"Just carry on doing the job you're brilliant at, don't answer him back and remember that nothing in the army is forever, that things change all the time and maybe your new CO will hate him and take him out and shoot him" He lifted her head by putting his finger under her chin, and smiled "But while I'm away we can Skype and text, even write if you like, and we can think about what we'll do when I get back, and you can wipe that smirk off your face for a start, I meant how we're going to sort things out so that we can be together" He paused and thought for a second "If that's what you want"

"Course it's what I want" She rolled onto her stomach and rested her chin on her hands as she looked at him, face wreathed in smiles "Are we gonna make a start on this packing?"

"Nope, we can do it tomorrow"

"What about the lads, your booze-up?"

"What? Why the fuck would I want to be with any of them when I can be with you?" He dotted her face with kisses "Nope, don't think we'll have time to go to any pub, I've still going to have a load of packing to do so I'm going to need all the help I can get"

"Charles" he stopped dotting her face with kisses long enough to lift his head and raise one eyebrow "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can"

"I know that you're a lot older than me, you said you were, and I could easy look you up, your medical record I mean, but I keep forgetting, so how old are you exactly?"

-OG-

 **Six Months Later**

The dinner party was all his idea.

He'd invited Jock and Lydia, Laura and Steve, who was newly promoted to Lance Corporal, and who would be bringing their baby Gabe, who would probably be known as 'the little bugger' until he was at least 21, as well as inviting Martin, a fairly newly arrived Sergeant and his wife Gloria, so that he could somehow try and exorcise the ghosts of another dinner party, as well as creating a celebration and an opportunity to tell everyone that they were now officially together, that Molly was going to leave the army and that his promotion was official and he was now Major James.

He'd teased her and asked whether she wanted to invite Ian and Jessie as well and had then been horrified when she'd taken him seriously and burst into heartbroken floods of tears, accusing him of being a complete arsehole. As she'd cried her eyes out and then slammed round the house not talking to him for hours, he'd wondered whether she did, in fact, still care for Ian; whether everything she'd said about the end of their marriage had been bravado.

"Do you still love him?"

"What? Course not! Why don't you try not to be a dickhead, you know you're talking crap, I divorced him, didn't I? What happened that night just weren't funny and now that I think about it I remember that you thought it were funny at the time, that you _laughed_ , and why the hell would you think I still love him? I'm here with you aren't I?" She sniffed then looked for a tissue and gave up, wiping her eyes and snotty nose on her hand "You're not gonna do something to me like he did at this bleeding stupid party, not as _a joke_ or anything, are you?"

"Of course I'm not, and I'm sorry, I wasn't serious suggesting we should invite them, it _was_ just a stupid joke" He picked her up out of the chair where she was huddled, still sniffling and sulking, and put her on his lap "You know, that first time I met you, I honestly didn't think it was funny, any of it, I couldn't believe how fucking stupid he was. I meant it when I told you that there are always rumours, and I had heard one or two, but I couldn't believe that he would risk what he'd got, a nice home and a bloody gorgeous wife like you, for a bit of a fumble with her" He smoothed her hair away from her hot forehead "I meant it when I said about wanting to take you home with me, but I didn't tell you that I wanted to lock all the doors and windows and stop you leaving" He bent his head to smile at her, then bit his bottom lip and put on his 'forgive me' face.

"Rebecca would have really loved that"

"Yep, well there was that" He laughed "Although we were in injury time by then so she probably wouldn't have cared that much"

"Laura did most of the shouting that night didn't she?" Molly had stopped crying and was beginning to want to laugh "You know, Ian should count himself bloody lucky that he wasn't married to her, she would have kicked his bollocks so hard that he'd still be blowing them out of his nose today. It's not that I still love him, you know that, and I sort of know now that I never did, not really, or even that I like him anymore, I can't actually remember a time when I did like him, although I suppose I must have done once, it's just that it still feels like I was such an epic fail"

"I know"

"How do you know?"

"Because I feel like that too, of course I do, especially when I see Sam" He thought for a moment "And it was my fault, I couldn't give Rebecca what she wanted, a settled life somewhere, I just wanted to be in the army, but then you came into my life and changed everything. You weren't the one who failed, Molly, he was, and he'll fail again, quite soon if the rumours about him are true"

"Shit … I'd say poor Jessie …, but I can't, I still feel like it serves her bloody well right, but at least I didn't have a kid to worry about" She sat up straight, took a deep breath and pushed her hair away from her damp face as she tried her best to change the subject "So, tell me again, why exactly are we having this bloody dinner party?"

"We're showing everyone how lucky I am to have you"

"Yeah right, course we are" She raised her eyebrows signalling her scepticism "You're sure it's not because you wanna show off about being a bleeding Major"

"Well, there is that as well" He laughed as she pulled a face then grabbed her hands and pulled them round his neck as he kissed her, glad that their fight appeared to be over, he hated it when she cried. It happened so very rarely because Molly always tried to present an unemotional outer shell, she never let anyone see how upset she was, so that it made him feel even worse than he already did when he knew he was 100% responsible for her crying the way she had.

-OG-

"Yeah well, we've gotta get up, there's still loads to do"

"Remind me again, whose idea was this?"

"I'm fed up with keep reminding you, it was YOURS"

"Oh yes, so it was, I wanted to show off, didn't I? And now I just want to stay in bed, so why can't we ignore the doorbell? They'll piss off eventually if we don't answer"

"We can't do that" She giggled "We invited them, or you did"

"Come on, I don't want to have to share you with anyone, you don't spend enough time with me as it is"

"Won't be long before I'm here all the time and then you'll get sick of the sight of me"

"That'll never happen, okay, okay, in a minute, I'll get up in a minute"

"No we won't, we'll get up now"

Molly was trying her hardest to sound as though she absolutely meant what she was saying, they only had a few hours left and nothing was ready, the food which had come from Marks was still in the freezer and needed defrosting and decanting into their own dishes before it went in the oven. The cutlery needed checking to make sure that the matching stuff wasn't still in the dishwasher waiting to be washed, and the same went for the crockery, she wasn't sure that they had enough glasses and Charles might have to nip to the shops and buy some more, and Molly needed another bath or a shower because she was sure that without one she would have a damp patch on the back of her dress and would smell of sex, which Laura wouldn't hesitate to mention in her usual loud voice.

She moved to swing her legs off the bed as he tried to pin her down and began kissing her down her body, doing his absolute level best to persuade her to come back under the sheets and making her giggle in the process as she tried in vain to trap his wandering hands and to move his leg which he kept putting over hers to stop her getting out of the bed.

-OG-

Doing basic and then her medic training had persuaded Molly that she had made the right decision about her choice of career but being posted to Catterick had meant that he'd come back into her life and that had made a huge dent in that conviction. Before Christmas, when she'd just been another member of the platoon and he'd seemed to be almost bullying her at times, she'd kept on reminding herself that he was just a bloke that she'd met a couple of times, a bloke who was much older than her and who had been kind to her one evening when things had gone a bit pear-shaped, a bloke that she'd been for one meal with and kissed goodnight, just someone who was now her boss, her CO, no-one special, but she'd still somehow spent huge amounts of time thinking about him and had known instinctively that he was doing the same thing about her. That his eyes were following her around all the time, even when he was yelling at her, and that he was totally aware of her whenever they were in the same place.

After they'd got together and he'd gone off to Iraq it had been exactly the way she'd been afraid it would be, she'd kept on doing her job the best way she could, she'd traded insults and banter with the lads, and had done her level best to keep out of Eggy's way as she went through the usual daily routines, but none of it seemed to matter that much anymore, it all seemed to be about going through the motions. She lived for his letters and his phone calls because she missed him with a sort of raw pain, so that even the days when there'd been a chance she'd just catch a glimpse of him somewhere and he hadn't even seemed to like her very much, seemed, in retrospect, to be magic in comparison to the hollow emptiness she felt now that she knew it was impossible for that to happen.

It was when she hit her pit at night that she suffered the agonies of anxiety about him, anxieties that she couldn't share with anyone because he didn't know where he was going to be stationed when he came back to the U.K., and those worries kept her awake night after night, meaning that she was permanently exhausted. But no amount of worry could change the fact that he was thousands of miles away in some sodding desert, teaching Iraqi soldiers how to be soldiers, and hopefully keeping himself out of the way of stray bullets and bombs, so she just had to live with it.

Despite all her pleading for a few hours off, she hadn't been able to go to Brize to meet him because Eggy had exercised what felt to Molly like petty spite because she wouldn't tell him why she wanted the time off. Sulking had got her nowhere with him in the past, so she just had to suck it up, giving him an excuse to cancel her weekend off would be enough to make her go AWOL and face the consequences afterwards.

That first weekend Charles was home they'd clung to each other for what felt like hours when she'd arrived at the flat, still furious about not being able to go to Brize. The tenants had vacated and he was considering putting the flat up for sale, but for now it was perfect, as, with hardly a word being spoken, they'd just turned their phones off and then didn't get out of bed at all for the whole weekend, except to go to the bathroom or to make toast. Getting dressed and going out to eat seemed like such a waste of time although Charles had kept offering that they could go somewhere nice if she wanted to.

She'd seen the expression on his face when she'd told him what she was planning to do in the long term, even though he'd masked it pretty quickly in his anxiety not to influence her, so that she knew it was the right decision for both of them, in spite of his uncertainty about whether it was right for her and that she wasn't just doing it to make him happy.

She had almost another year to serve before she would be free to leave, so for the time being they lived for when she'd got leave and could be with him in the rented house in Ash. He'd been posted back to his previous platoon at Pirbright, a platoon which unfortunately included Ian. He'd spent the first few weeks after arriving back from Iraq asking her over and over again whether this was really what she wanted to do, bearing in mind the proximity of her ex-husband, until she'd got so tired of hearing it that she'd accused him of changing his mind about them and of trying to make her change hers, so that he'd shut up and allowed himself to be happy about her decision.

She'd pointed out that she'd said all along that she didn't want to be stationed anywhere without him and that nothing that had happened since then had made her change her mind, so he'd eventually accepted that what she'd decided was what she wanted, but was now wishing the time away because his worst and most private nightmare was that she would be deployed somewhere dangerous before her time was up.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: You know how I feel about your feedback, and because I can't think of any other way to say it, I'll just repeat that I can't thank you enough for taking the time and trouble to review for me, and that I hope you enjoy Chap. 8.**


	9. Chapter 9

_**It's nothing to do with the wine**_

 _ **Or the music that's**_ **flooding my mind**

"I'd forgotten how bloody gorgeous he is, any time you feel like a bit of a break, you can bung him over to me"

"Laura" Molly tried hard not to sound as irritated with her friend as she felt "That's not funny, and you wouldn't know what to talk to him about, he's a grown-up.

"Who said I wanted to talk to him? I just want to borrow his body for half an hour" She sniggered and pulled a face "I haven't forgotten that you promised to give me all the sordid details"

"I said, that's not funny and I never promised to give you anything of the sort, so just shut up and go and do whatever it is you do with that poor little baby of yours, or something" Molly laughed "Oh and don't flash your tits at Jock again, he didn't know where to look, poor bugger"

"What do you mean he didn't know where to look? I thought he looked as if he'd had a bit of a treat myself" She gave a dirty laugh "His wife's a miserable old cow isn't she? I remember her from before"

"Never mind a bloody treat, you nearly gave him a Julius Caesar, and I don't think she's miserable, I think she'd just a bit shy" Molly shrugged "And she's not old, mind you I wouldn't blame her if she came over and lamped you one, you've bleeding asked for it"

"Oh I forgot, you like pensioners these days don't you?"

"I'm gonna ignore that, cos this is the woman who just asked if she could borrow him for a bit and anyhow he's not old, he's 32, and that's not much older than Steve"

"I have missed you, Molls, it's really good to have you back"

"I'm not back yet, but I've missed you too" Even as she said it Molly was wondering if it was true. They had been very good friends for a very long time and Laura had been there for her when things had gone to shit and since, but there were times when she found Laura's humour hard to take except in very small doses. The thought that she'd maybe outgrown the friendship scared her and made her sad, once upon a time she and Laura had liked all the same things and had laughed at all the same jokes, but things had changed, Molly had changed, and it wasn't only to do with Charles. Being in the army had changed her, being a respected part of a team had changed her and being a medic with responsibilities had changed her more than anything else.

"What you going to do when you're not in the army anymore, same like before?" It was as if Laura had read her mind.

"Nah, not a chance, I'm not sure yet but I might gonna think about working in a hospital or something, I like being a medic"

"You could have a baby like me"

"Yeah, I could, but I'm not going to, you've put me off for bleeding life"

Handing out leaflets and fliers in a shopping mall like she used to when she was married to Ian now seemed like one of the worst ideas she could have, it was the dead end job to beat all dead ends as far as she was concerned, although it was somewhat eclipsed by Laura's suggestion that she could have a baby to give her something to do. On the one hand having a baby would mean that she wouldn't have to wait until the four years was up before she could leave, but on the other, the thought of being like her mother and popping out a kid every year filled her with shuddering horror. Not the actual having a baby, that didn't scare her, well only a very little bit, but the thought of being trapped with a houseful of little bleeders with no money, or being like Laura who seemed to her to be both bored _and_ trapped, did, and anyway because she wasn't even married to him, she'd have no security at all.

"Are we still going to be mates?"

"Course we are, what you talking about?"

"Well, you know, what with his nibs being a Major and being so important and my old man being …. so … _not_?"

-OG-

"You okay?"

The food had been a triumph, beautifully cooked by Mr Marks and Mr Spencer and heated by Ms Dawes with the hindrance of Major James who'd spent most of the time clearing away and washing up dishes and spoons and things that she hadn't finished with. The food was served with copious amounts of wine so that the conversation flowed and Molly found herself with loads to talk about with both the Sergeants, so that Charles felt the familiar pangs of disquiet over her plans for her future. He could only make a private resolution to encourage her to find something that would challenge her the way being an army medic did.

The party had moved out into the garden, the June evening was warm and still quite light when they finished eating so that they had taken their coffee and drinks outside. Charles put his arms round her waist from behind so that she could lean back against him, loving how secure he made her feel when he didn't mind showing affection for her in public, as he bent his head and whispered "Should have cut the bloody grass instead of spending all afternoon in bed with you"

"Whose fault was that Major James?"

"Definitely yours" He tightened his arms round her "You look gorgeous tonight, did I tell you? That dress looks lovely, I can't wait to take it off, and the food was really nice …. "

"Stop being a letch, someone will hear you" She smirked as she felt him shrug and knew that he was grinning "and yeah, Marks are shit hot at cooking, aren't they?" She was now trying very hard not to sound as though she was about to break into laughter.

"Stop splitting hairs" She could tell from his voice that he was also trying not to laugh "What were you and Laura looking so serious about?"

"Cheeky mare asked if she could borrow your body for a bit"

"Bloody hell, I hope you said no" He shuddered theatrically "I know she's your friend, but that woman scares me to death"

"Coward" Molly tilted her head back trying to look up and get a glimpse of the expression on his face "Course I did, I said she couldn't have a loan cos you're mine"

"And you're mine" He lifted the hair off the back of her neck and kissed behind her ear, then tightened his hold on her even more so that her head was tucked under his chin and he could kiss the top of her head.

"We was talking about what I'm gonna do when I'm not in the army anymore"

"You'll be brilliant whatever you decide to do, but there's no rush to decide Molls"

"She thinks I should have a baby like her, stop me getting bored"

"Well you could if you want to" He paused "But I think that there's a couple of things we need to do first, like the family thing for one, your Nan wants to interrogate me"

"She'll be fine" she paused "most likely" she paused again as she gave it even more thought "she likes good looking blokes so she won't eat you" there was another long pause "or she might not, it's just that she's not very keen on soldiers, not after Ian"

"I'm not Ian" He shook his head "I'm never going to be like him. Listen, I know there are times when you'll moan to all your mates that I'm a bossy bastard, because I know I can be sometimes, but I'll never, ever do anything to hurt you"

"You? Bossy? Never" She pretended to be incredulous "I know you won't hurt me and I know you're not like Ian and so will all me family, Nan as well, you'll be fine" She crossed her fingers involuntarily where he couldn't see them "They'll love you"

"Bloody well hope so"

"Anyway, what about your lot, I'm never gonna be the sort of girl they're used to, am I?"

"Nope, but they'll love you too" He tilted his head to one side to try and look at her face "We're happy, aren't we? I know I am and that's all mum and dad will care about"

It was very, very late when Jock and Lydia, who were the last men standing, finally left. They had gone through the front door towards the gate at least three times and each time Jock had turned and wandered back to carry on with some conversation which no-one else was following, so that it had become obvious that the way to get him to speak was to fill him full of copious amounts of booze, and then you couldn't shut him up. The two of them had finally zigzagged off down the road, leaving their car parked outside, because Lydia had quietly put away a fair amount herself, so that Molly could finally stop trying to suppress the yawns which had been making her jaw hurt and her eyes water. She was left standing and looking with some despair at the debris which was covering the dining room table and all the kitchen work surfaces as well as glasses and coffee cups which were dotted around the paving slabs of the patio, with some in the grass that needed cutting.

"Hey" He took the tray of plates from her and kissed her on the tip of her nose "Go on, I'll sort this lot, you go to bed, I'll even wash up the stuff that doesn't go in the dishwasher"

"Thanks, I'll make it worth your while"

"Not till tomorrow by the look of you, go on, piss off"

She wasn't quite out of it when he got into bed, but was in the lovely stage of drifting between asleep and awake so that he gathered her into his arms to cuddle her while she dropped off to sleep and she woke up enough to start talking.

"It wasn't too bad, was it? tonight I mean"

"It was lovely, you were lovely, the food was lovely, everyone had a really good time, especially me, and even Jock"

"Especially Jock you mean"She laughed "And Lydia was quite happy as well"

"Yep, I'm not sure whether I should be worried about them or not"

Molly yawned widely making her eyes water "Laura told me she's a bit worried that her and me can't be mates any more, what with you being so bleeding important 'n that"

"I'm not important, and you can be mates with whoever you like, you know that, it's got nothing to do with me, as long as you promise not to agree to let her borrow me"

"You're important to me, and I'm never gonna share you with anyone" She gave another jaw cracking yawn "About Laura ….." She paused, not sure what she wanted to say "It don't matter…." She changed the subject "You never said what you thought about us having kids, after we've done the family stuff"

"Yes, of course I'd like to have more kids" He dropped a kiss on the top of her head "but I didn't think you wanted them yet, well not for a long time" He stroked her hair and laughed as he started having to stifle yawns "Stop it, you're making me yawn now"

"Sorry"

"Molly, if we want to have kids, I think we should get married first, before we have them, if you want to I mean, it doesn't have to be now if you're not sure, we can wait until you're ready" He paused for a moment "I'm not sure that came out the way I meant it to"

"Are you sure you want to get married again? I mean, both of us well fucked it up last time, didn't we?" She tried hard to find the right words to express what she wanted to say through the fog of exhaustion and far too much wine that was clouding her brain "I don't want to get married just so as we can have kids, because I'm not sure how that would work … and you don't _have_ to say about loving me or nothing, actually I think I might be a little bit pissed, but I'd sort of like to know, so do you?"

"Are you asking me whether I love you? " She nodded "Why are you even asking me that? You know that I love you, same way that I know that you love me, and that nothing will ever change that, and when you're not here, or when I have to be away, like when I was in Iraq, or when I've been on exercise and you've got leave, I hate that we can't be together, so I'd like nothing more than for us to get married, babies or no babies, but right now I think you should stop talking and go to sleep, you're going to feel horrible in the morning"

"I do love you and I do want to marry you"

"Good, I'm very glad to hear it, even if you are more than a little bit pissed" He laughed and kissed her cheek tucking her even more firmly against him. She began kissing him across his chest from nipple to nipple before taking one between her teeth and nipping him lightly.

"Ouch, and I thought you were tired"

"Not anymore, but I didn't mean to hurt you, shall I stop?"

"Nope, but this is probably a really good time to tell you that I didn't finish the washing up"

-OG-

"Molls, me and your Nan have been having a bit of a chat and we feel that we should have a word with you, I mean don't get me wrong we think he's a lovely bloke, really good looking and nice 'n that but he's too posh" Belinda swallowed so hard that Molly could hear it even though they were speaking on the phone "He's even posher than that Ian was, and look what happened there"

"Mum, what happened with Ian had nothing to do with him being posh, it was to do with him being an arsehole, and he weren't posh anyhow"

"Even so, Molls, you need to not be in so much of an hurry, you haven't been together long enough to even think about getting married, I mean you aint known him that long have you?"

"I've known him ages mum, since before me divorce"

"Well, Bella said as how you met him in a club somewhere when the two of you was out last summer" She paused "And does that mean he had something to do with you getting a divorce?"

"No, Mum, Bella is talking complete bollocks, you know what she's like, of course he had nothing to do with me divorce, you and Nan both know exactly why I divorced Ian"

"All the same, you need to have a real good think about things, young lady" Her mother swallowed again "What the hell's wrong with some lad who's not so posh that you can't trust him? A lad that's more like us"

"What, like me dad you mean? I'm sorry mum, I don't wanna upset you or nothing but I ain't never gonna marry anyone like me dad, anyhow I DO trust Charles and I AM gonna marry him, so why can't you just be happy for me, for us?"

"Your dad's not good enough, is that what you're saying?"

Molly could hear her grandmother shouting in the background that of course Dave wasn't good enough, he was good for nothing and that she'd always said that Belinda had needed her head examined when she'd agreed to marry him, bun in the oven or not.

The whole idea of the white meringue, bridesmaids and toothy grins with her dad getting plastered and squaring up to his relatives and showing them all up, and her mum tearing her hair out trying to keep the kids from getting grubby and the teenagers from getting into the booze, while Nan made snarky comments, had already filled her with the sort of horror that nightmares are made of, a sense of deja vu of 'been there, done that, never, ever doing that again'. The conversation with her mum made her adamant that hell would freeze over before that happened, especially with people who thought she was making a mistake, she'd rather go to the local Registry Office wearing jeans and pick up a couple of witnesses outside in the street.

Charles had been equally unenthusiastic at the thought of reprising his 'society' wedding to Rebecca, all morning suits and bridesmaids and page boys, little monsters with names like Clarissa and Hugo whose ugo atoffee-nosed mothers had spent the whole day trying to out-do one another so that Rebecca had moaned about them continually, although he'd said that he'd be happy with whatever type of day Molly wanted, because all that he really cared about was that she turned up and married him.

His parents, or at least his mum, had been as reluctant for them to do the whole wedding thing as the Dawes family were, she was very unsure that he was doing the right thing because although she'd hated Rebecca and had been heartily glad to see the back of her, she was very afraid that Molly's background and accent would prove to be a millstone in his army career and that her language wouldn't make her a good role model as a stepmother for Sam. She was concerned that he was rushing into it, bearing in mind that it was the second time around for both of them.

-OG-

"Are you sure you're on for this, Dawsey?"

"Yeah, let's do it"

"Come on then"

In the end they decided not to tell anyone what they were intending to do and they hadn't even looked on line just gone together to the High Street travel agent and booked it. The fact that they'd drunk the best part of a bottle and a half of red wine between them without actually having anything to eat, meant that Molly at least was very, very tipsy but Charles, as he'd said before, was only tipsy on the inside.

-OG-

 **Author's notes: Thank you for sticking with me. The next chapter was always intended to be the last. Chapter one to set the scene for their paths to cross and then it was a love story, (exactly what it said on the tin) following them for a year of their lives.**

 **Having said all that, I am now considering re-visiting and picking things up from Christmas onwards, it will really depend on feedback.**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Never before have I been so sure**_

 _ **You're the someone I dreamed I would find**_

The Sandals resort in Barbados was the stuff of dreams as far as Molly was concerned, she'd never been anywhere which came even close to being so posh, her honeymoon with Ian had been the first time she'd ever been abroad and it had been really nice, a week in Spain that had been lovely, a nice hotel in a nice resort, with weather that had been hot and sunny, but it was nothing like as luxurious as Emerald Beach where they were going to get married.

They'd waited for the hurricane season to be over but the closer it got to the time they'd booked the more Molly started to get cold feet. She wanted to pinch herself to check whether it was really happening because it all seemed a bit out of her league, underneath she was still the same old Molly Dawes that she'd always been, the Molly whose own mother thought she wasn't good enough for a posh bloke like Charles, someone that Ian's mother had described as common and loud and she had a very nasty suspicion that Charles' parents would agree with every word.

Turquoise sea, white sand, obviously beautifully warm and the only sound the little waves breaking on the beach, then walking hand in hand until they were under this flowery arch thing and standing there next to him wearing a white chiffon dress with a white flower in her hair and carrying a small posy of them same flowers tied with white ribbons, both of them barefoot in the sand, with a couple of witnesses that they didn't know from Adam, it was all going to be perfect, she'd watched the DVD from the wedding planner over and over.

It wasn't until the time left before they were due to go was running out rapidly that the doubts really crept in, and she admitted to herself that it would all be perfect except for one thing, there would be no-one there to see them. She couldn't blame anyone, this had been her choice, she was the one who'd wanted to get married like this, just the two of them, dead romantic on a beautiful beach, and the man sitting across the room doing something on his laptop was going to be the most important person at the wedding as far as she was concerned, he was the most important person in her life, and she knew that he felt exactly the same way, but it was just that there was something missing.

She would miss seeing the expressions that would have been on the faces of her mum and her Nan, her sisters and maybe even her dad, when they saw how gorgeous and perfect it all was and how happy she was, well how happy they would both be. She hated that there was still a distance between her and the family over her marrying Charles, so that she hadn't even told them about what they were planning, the family had no clue that by the time she came home from their Caribbean holiday she wouldn't be Molly Dawes any more, she would be Molly James.

"Are you watching that Sandal's thing again?" He closed down whatever he was doing and moved over to sit next to her on the sofa "What's up?"

"Nothing" She did her best to smile "Just, you know, thinking about stuff"

"Have you changed your mind?"

"No, course not, I really, really want us to get married, I love you so much that I can't explain how much, I just can't find the right words"

"But? Come on, Molly, I know there's a 'but' in there somewhere" He lifted one eyebrow and smiled encouragingly "Oh and by the way those sound like perfect words to me"

"Well, yeah, maybe there is a little bit of a but, just a little bit, I mean, oh God, I'm sorry, it's not that I'm not happy, or that it's not all gonna be perfect or anything, it is, but I just wish that everyone could be there cos I feel like I want to show them that they was all wrong about you, about us. Anyhow, how did you know?"

"I can read you like a book, Dawsey"

"No you can't …. can you?"

"Look, I can't wait for everyone to know that you're Mrs. James, but we haven't got anything to prove, you do know that, don't you? He took a deep breath and cupped her face in his hand tilting it upwards so that her eyes were locked onto his "I don't give a shit where we get married, we don't have to go half way round the world to do it if you don't want to, if you've changed your mind. Guildford Registry Office do weddings, or so I've heard and they're just up the road. True, it might not be very warm and it probably hasn't got much of a beach" He snorted a laugh down his nose "But as long as you turn up it'll be perfect" He smiled at her.

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I mean it" He nodded then started ticking items off on his fingers "Your mum can have a good cry and so can mine, Sam can grunt with your brothers, Nan can threaten to break my legs and Laura can flash her tits" he grinned "And then Jock can get pissed ….. perfect, what more do we want"

"Are you being sarcastic, trying to make me change me mind back?"

"No I'm not, I mean it"

"Don't care what anyone says, you're okay sometimes aren't you? " She dotted his face with kisses then gulped "I can't wait to see you show me off to bloody Eggy, he's obviously going to be well impressed, my biggest fan"

"Forget him, why you care what he thinks I can't imagine"

"I know and okay, I'll try" she smiled then her face crumpled again, this time with worry "But what about all the money? If we don't go it'll all be wasted, and I'll feel really bad cos we're still gonna have to pay for everything aren't we?"

"We'll go, we just won't get married out there, we'll get married before we go or after we come back, it'll be our honeymoon"

"Okay"

"Mind you, it's just as well we like cheap Supermarket baked beans, isn't it?" He laughed as he kissed her on the tip of her nose "By the time we've paid for two weddings we'll be living on the bloody things for at least the next two years"

-OG-

"Mum, there's something I need to talk to you about ….." Molly took a deep breath, her words of explanation all worked out in her head but her mother interrupted her before she could finish what she'd started to say.

"You're pregnant aren't you? Oh Molls, I bloody knew it, I warned you, didn't I? Your Nan warned you, so where is he now? Pushed off already, has he?" Belinda shook her head and reached out towards her daughter, ready to hug her and reassure her that it didn't mean the end of the world and that they would manage.

"No mum I'm not pregnant, why would you even think that? And he hasn't pushed off, well he wouldn't anyhow, and why are you being so horrible about him? " She paused and took a deep breath "What I wanted to tell you was that Charles and I are getting married next Friday" She shrugged her shoulders, then continued "Guildford Registry Office?" Her mother looked at her and then looked across at her Nan with shock and dismay written all over her face.

"You're getting _married_ next Friday?" She shook her head "And you're not pregnant? So what's your rush? Why are you in such a bleeding hurry?"

"Yeah, I mean no, I'm not pregnant" Molly shrugged and smiled, then spoke ingratiatingly "Just be happy for me, please? It's not a rush, we've had it planned for quite a while, we were going to do it on the beach while we was on holiday, you know, in the Caribbean cos that's what lots of people do"

"You're getting married? On Friday? Belinda repeated what she'd said and seemed to ignore everything else Molly said, then suddenly woke up and took it in, and reacted "You was going to do it all on your own, without any of us out there with you? How come, Molls? Or was his family gonna be there?"

"No, mum, they weren't gonna be there either, it was just gonna be Charles and me and I didn't really think you'd want to be there, you told me not to marry him, remember? That you and Nan thought he was way out of my league, far too posh for me" Her voice broke slightly as she remembered how hurt she'd been at their words "But you was talking complete bollocks, he loves me and I love him and we want to get married, and we want you lot to be there" She paused and shrugged her shoulders "So we changed it"

"Was it proper, you know, legal 'n that?"

"Course it was, loads of people do it, but we're not gonna do that anymore, we've changed it"

"No-one we know has done it"

"Mum! It don't matter now does it?"

"I was just saying" Her mother was beginning to sound huffy.

"Was it his idea, this hero of yours?"

These were the first few words her grandmother had said since her conversation with Belinda had begun, up to that moment Nan had been standing, leaning against the doorway of the kitchen with her arms folded and her head on one side listening but without saying a word.

"No, Nan, it was what we both wanted, but it's not gonna happen like that, okay? Anyway Charles would have done anything, I could have had any sort of wedding that I wanted"

"So does this mean that you can leave now, once you're married?"

"Nah, it'll be another few months before they'll let me leave, so it's a bit shit, but there's nothing either of us can do about that" Molly carefully didn't mention the 'getting pregnant' option in her explanation "I'd really like it if you lot could be happy for me, for us, and I'm really, really sorry that I never told you what we was going to do, but I want you to come to the Register Office and maybe to the pub after, we ain't decided about that yet, but I don't wanna hear everyone keep telling me that it's a bad idea, that he's too posh for me" She shrugged as she looked at her mother and grandmother.

-OG-

"But Charles, it's not as though we're snobs or anything" Charles raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes as he listened to his mother who hadn't taken the news of his impending marriage with any degree of delight "It's just that, well" she paused "you know we think she's a really lovely girl and we love her to bits" she paused again for even longer "it's just that….." His mother paused for a third time and shrugged as she tried to find the words that her son would find the least offensive, then wrapped up what she wanted to say by including his dad, who raised his eyebrows in disbelief exactly the way Charles did sometimes "Your dad and I are a bit worried about how well she'll fit in, with your career and everything"

"Mum, what do you mean you're not being a snob? That's the most snobbish thing you've ever said about anyone and you know you're talking absolute rubbish, don't you?" Charles was trying very hard not to let his intense irritation with her show "Molly and I are very happy together, we love each other and we're getting married. It was going to be out in the Caribbean, but now it's going to be here and it's completely up to you whether you come or not, but Sam will be there and Molly's family will be there and it would be good if you came as well, but as I said it's up to you" Charles put every ounce of his Major Stern into his voice, so that his mother was left in no doubt what he felt or that the wedding would go ahead with or without them.

-OG-

Mail to: mdawsey hotmail

From: cjames BTinternet

Subject: Sorry

Mum will be here when you get back - tried to put her off but she wants to help and you know she can be difficult. Will make it up to you xxx

To: cjames BTinternet

From: mdawsey hotmail

Subject: Your Mum

It's gonna cost you xxx

To: mdawsey hotmail

From: cjames BTinternet

Subject:

Thanks, you can wipe the smirk off your face now, it's not funny xxx

To: cjames BTinternet

From: mdawsey hotmail

Subject:

Yes it is xxx

To: mdawsey hotmail

From: cjames BTinternet

Subject:

Love you too xxx

-OG-

Seven days in the Caribbean sun on a deserted beach fringed with palm trees and a turquoise sea and staying in a so-called "cottage" which, with its four poster bed and floaty gauze curtains for privacy was nothing like any cottage that Molly had ever seen, even in posh magazines. They'd eaten all their meals on the shaded terrace during the day and in the light of hundreds of tiny candles at night, with their own butler waiting on them, a butler who seemed to know instinctively when it was time to wheel the dinner trolley away and leave them alone with the remains of their bottle of wine and each other.

"Come on, trust me you'll love it, I promise"

"Nah I won't, I'll bloody drown"

"I'm not going to let you drown"

"Then what you laughing at?" She took the hand he held out for her and gingerly followed him into the water "You'd better not, I'm telling you now"

The sea was flat calm and warm and was so inviting that Charles had decided to try and use all his powers of persuasion to get Molly in for a swimming lesson, he loved swimming and had been appalled when she'd admitted that not only couldn't she swim but that she actually didn't care that she'd never learned. After what felt like hours of patiently walking up and down beside her in waist deep water one arm supporting her body, he'd finally managed to surreptitiously let go so that she'd mastered a couple of strokes of a kind of doggy paddle before she realised that he wasn't holding her up anymore and panicked. Eventually she achieved a short 'swim' on her own but never actually confessed that she'd had the toes of one foot on the sand the whole time and he'd grinned, kissed the tip of her nose and let her get away with it.

-OG-

A cold grey December afternoon at Heathrow and Molly was shivering as she struggled to get in Charles' Discovery which she hated with a passion.

"Why can't we have a car what I can get in and out of without showing me knickers to everyone in the sodding car park?"

"Grumpy"

"No, I'm not"

"Molly, I'm six foot four, I'd have a hell of a problem getting in and out of a mini, wouldn't I? and I'd look bloody stupid driving one, so, where to first your Majesty?"

"Home, James" She giggled as he pulled a face "I wish I didn't have to go back, I really want to stay with you"

"I know, believe me I want you to stay as well, but it won't be for long"

"Stop trying to make me feel better, cos it's not gonna work"

-OG-

The platoon Christmas party was being held at the same Chinese Restaurant as the previous year, a milestone because it was the first time in their history that they'd been allowed back anywhere and texts had been exchanged between Molly and Brains to say that she would definitely be back from her leave in time to be there and to please add her name to the list. Charles had been in contact with Kinders to say that he was going to join them as he'd never actually had a farewell drink with the lads when he'd been deployed and then posted. Neither of them breathed a word about Guildford.

As they sat in the dark looking around the car park at the back of the Chinese, Molly had taken a deep breath and asked what he remembered about the party the previous year and speculated on whether or not it was going to snow, and what did he think, as she'd peeked at him from under her eyelashes and smirked waiting for him to answer.

"Nope, not going to snow, don't think so anyway, it might be a bit too cold" He gave her a sideways glance "What's so special about it snowing?"

"Are you being a knob? Or do you really not remember?"

"Of course I remember how could I not?" He laughed "God, you're so easy to wind up, Mrs James"

"Oi" He called after her as she exited the car and walked off towards the front of the restaurant "Did I tell you that you look bloody gorgeous tonight?"

Molly turned and stuck her tongue out at him then smirked and kept on walking until she disappeared from sight.

-OG-

"Molls, Molls, over here" A group of the lads were calling across the room and waving their arms at her as she walked in, Charles had stayed outside in the car for a few minutes because they didn't want to give the game away immediately by going in together "You're not as brown as I expected, I thought you'd get more of a suntan in the bloody Caribbean this time of year"

"Nah, sun's bad for you, didn't you know it gives you skin cancer?" Molly smiled to herself; she could hardly say that there hadn't been time to get much of a suntan when she'd spent most of the week rolling about in a four poster bed with her incredibly fit husband.

"Look, there's the boss, what the bloody hell is he doing back here?"

Despite the fact that there was a new Captain of the platoon, it would appear that there was only ever one who was called 'boss' as they all crowded round him in a noisy welcome telling him how good it was to see him and how well he looked and taking the piss out of him a bit for being a Major, as Eggy caught sight of Molly on the fringe of the group and half nodded in a straight-faced acknowledgment that she was there, before turning back to Charles to carry on congratulating him on his promotion, an exchange that annoyed Charles intensely. The noisy clamour continued until the manager called them over to their table and Kinders fussed around making sure that the seat next to him was kept free so that Charles would sit with him towards the centre of the long table.

"Here Boss" Kinders sat down and pulled out the chair for Charles but Charles waited until all of them, except Molly, were sitting before he replied.

"Actually, thanks, but" He put out his hand out for Molly as she hovered nearby "I'd really rather sit with my beautiful wife" He smiled and looked round at the initially puzzled then shocked faces of his audience who were speechless and motionless at the table, eyes riveted on him, as he held onto her hand, then turned to look straight at Kinders "You all know Mrs James, don't you?"

-OG-

 **Author's Notes: Thank you for the lovely comments and the feedback on whether to continue this. I shall carry on, and will probably start with their wedding, which I have some ideas about but it will take me a while to put it together because I need to plan where the story goes next. I don't want to spoil the (hopefully) happy ever after feeling of this chapter or turn it into one long slop-fest either!**


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N: Lots of people asked me to think about continuing this because they wanted to know about Kinders' problem with Molly and I've thought about continuing it a couple of times, then decided to go for it and update because I've found that the best way to get over a wobbly is to get stuck into something that is a lot of fun to write. I will carry on with it if people want me to, but will be finishing "You're My World" as well.**_

-OG-

"So, Dawsey, is there something you feel you should tell us, hmmm?" Fingers folded his arms and pulled a 'knowing' face as he nodded his head and raised his eyebrows towards Molly's flat stomach "Something you want to share with your mates, hmmmmm?"

"No, behave" Molly started giggling, she'd known that some of them, if not all of them, would jump to the wrong conclusion "No, there's nothing at all to tell"

"Well, in that case that's a nice way to treat your mates isn't it?"

"Sorry"

"Bloody think so, you was one of us, one of the lads, we took you to our bosoms and then what do you do? You up and marry the bleeding boss without saying a word to any of us, nothing, nothing at all to your mates, you never even took us out for a beer on your stag …. I mean your hen …. no, I mean your stag?" he paused and frowned, not sure of the right word to use to describe the celebrations which had never actually taken place "Whatever you want to call it you didn't invite us, did you? Never mind inviting us to your bloody wedding … I'm hurt, gutted me, no I'm cut to the quick, well, we all are, aren't we lads?" This was the cue for some very vigorous head nodding accompanied by a great deal of smirking.

"No you're not and I'm still one of you, you prannit, but I _am_ sorry and I will take you out for a beer at the weekend, all of you" Molly hesitated as she caught sight of Derek Kinders making his way in their direction "Well most of you anyhow, just don't say anything to him though will you?"

"Oh, I don't know about that, you know, one for all and all for one and all that, it's very important, the Boss was always telling us that we were supposed to be a team and that we had to act like one. We had to look after each other _all the_ time" Fingers was back to pulling 'arch' faces again as he did his absolute best to wind her up.

"Fine, but if you ask him I'm not coming so you'll have to buy your own beer"

"I always said that all that teamwork bollocks was bloody over-rated"

The gale of laughter as he approached them made Derek Kinders smart with humiliation, he had no evidence whatsoever to back up his conviction that he was the butt of their joke, that they were laughing at him, just a general feeling of exclusion which, as usual, he blamed on Molly. He had been standing with Major James and their current O.C., Captain Mitchell, and had been trying his best to feel and look as though he was included in their conversation, as though he was an integral part of it, and, as usual, he hadn't quite managed it, so he'd wandered over to join the lads, even though she was with them. He knew that Captain Mitchell didn't particularly like him, he had caught an expression of faint distaste on the officer's face on more than one occasion, but Mitchell was stuck with him and couldn't do anything about it as long as he kept his nose clean, but Captain, no he had to remember that he was a Major now, Major James on the other hand was a different kettle of fish completely.

Kinders had always believed that he had the Major's respect, even his friendship on occasion, and that there was a special bond between them, a bond that had formed when they'd served in Afghan together, well he'd believed in that bond until everything had gone tits up.

"What's the joke, what's so funny lads?"

"Nothing Corp, we were just saying about going for a drink" Fingers gave Molly a sly glance and noting the horrified expression on her face decided to stop teasing and put her out of her misery "We were wondering whether to move onto a club, perhaps that same club as we went to last year, you know, that Northern Soul place that we all went to, you remember?" Even though Fingers had been virtually paralytic the previous year so that he knew very little about it he knew fine well that Kinders hadn't gone with them "The one with all the old birds in it? Oh no, that's right, I remember now, you bailed on us didn't you? Went off home early, it was the Boss and Dawsey and the rest of us that went, wasn't it?" Fingers was now thoroughly enjoying himself, he could see from Eggy's face that he wasn't sure whether he was being wound up or not "So, what do the rest of you reckon, Northern Soul? Dawsey, what do you think? Hey I've just thought, you're not Dawsey anymore are you, what are we supposed to call you now, Jamesy?"

"Dawsey will do and I'll have to ask my old man what he wants to do first"

Molly smirked at the collective groan from the group as she turned and looked at Charles who had just wandered over to join them in time to catch the gist of what was going on as he put his arm round her shoulders so that the two of them exchanged a fleeting private look and smile, remembering the year before. He'd been watching her out of the corner of his eye, waiting to see if she gave off any kind of 'help' or 'rescue me' signals but at the same time he'd been very reluctant to interfere in her time with her section family, well, that was until Kinders had joined the group. He hadn't forgotten the way the Corporal had looked at her and greeted her earlier that evening and on top of that he couldn't help being a bit concerned that maybe the lads might be upset with her for not telling them what had been going on. Not that she couldn't look after herself, she'd be the first person to give him hell if she thought he was trying to treat her like a 'little woman' but he couldn't help it, his instinct was always going to be to protect her, to do everything humanly possible to make sure that she was alright, to keep her safe …. and happy.

"Right, Northern Soul it is then lads and the first round's on me "

"I should think so too" Fingers was muttering as he emptied his glass for all the world as though he was talking to himself, although he was, in fact, playing to the gallery because, as usual, he was thoroughly enjoying being the centre of attention "First of all the Boss pushes off and leaves us behind, then, _then,_ he bloody comes back and steals our medic, our Molls, I don't know what the world's coming to, I really don't" He looked across at Charles with fake look of remorse on his face "Oh sorry Boss, talking to myself there, bad habit of mine"

"Fingers?" Charles waited until Fingers was looking straight at him as the group waited for the punch line "Shut the fuck up Fingers" There was a loud chorus as everyone joined in with Charles as he issued his much loved and regularly used order, and then gales of laughter from the listeners so that Fingers tossed his head and pretended to be offended before he pursed his lips and started grumbling about how badly misunderstood he was, at the same time as doing his best to pin an appropriately deeply hurt expression on his face.

-OG-

"Was everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think they're happy for us really even if they did dish out a load of old bollocks about me owing them because of not inviting them to the wedding"

"Jesus, God forbid"

"That's not very nice" Molly began to giggle at the horrified expression on Charles' face and his matching tone of voice "I'm taking them out for a drink at the weekend" She nodded her head to indicate where Kinders was deep in conversation with Brains as the two of them propped up the bar "Not him though, not asking him"

"Maybe you should, you know, it might make your last few months here a bit easier"

"Nah, don't care what you think, I don't care what anyone thinks, I'm not asking him, okay?"

"Okay" He dropped a light kiss on the top of her head where it was held against him as they almost stood still and swayed in time to the music both remembering the evening a year ago when they'd done exactly the same thing. The difference was that this time last year they'd both been horribly aware that any form of relationship, any form of contact at all between them was absolutely strictly forbidden, not that that had actually many any difference at all to the way they'd felt or the way things had panned out, there had been an inevitability all along about the outcome, an inevitability that had been there ever since they'd been for an Indian meal together in east London "Shall we go in a minute?"

"Yeah, we can see if it's snowed and then we can walk back"

"Have you forgotten? You moaned every inch of the bloody way last year, kept complaining that your feet were cold, mind you, you were wearing those bloody silly shoes you couldn't walk in weren't you?"

"I could walk in them … just not very well" She giggled at the expression on his face "And it was you what was bloody moaning, not me. You said I was too heavy"

"I did not and I wasn't moaning, I loved every minute of it, couldn't you tell?"

"Nah" She took her arms from round his waist and took hold of his hand "Come on then, let's go and then you can show me how much you loved it, can't you?"

"I'm not carrying you home first, it nearly killed me last time"

"I thought you loved it? That's what you just said"

"I did love it, it still nearly killed me"

-OG-

"Feels like a year since I saw you"

"I know" she struggled out of his bear hug just enough to look up into his face "Missed me?"

"No, of course not" He pulled her back into his hug "What do you think?" He bent his head and kissed her, completely oblivious to all the people at Bath Spa station who were having to walk round them.

"I think we should go home, well home to your parents' anyway" She tucked her arm through his then noticed the almost imperceptible grimace that passed over his features "Please tell me you haven't had a fight with your mum over Christmas" she looked at his face "Oh shit you have, haven't you?"

"No I haven't, well not a fight exactly, just a small difference of opinion, it's nothing for you to worry about"

"Charles James, you really are the bleeding limit, she's bound to blame me isn't she?"

"Rubbish, you weren't even there"

"What the hell's that got to do with it?"

It seemed a lifetime since the platoon Christmas party in the Chinese and then the two of them dancing together in the club, not to mention spending the rest of the night in the Holiday Inn and Molly had just spent almost all of the train journey to Bath thinking about how sick she was of their constant separations and reunions. It was almost a year now since they'd first got together and although they were now married it hadn't actually made any difference at all, they still spent more time hundreds of miles apart than they did together.

Christmas had been pretty much a non-event for her, as it had been the year before at Laura's, yes, there had been all the forced jollity of Santa hats and crackers and carol singing and eating Christmas dinner in an almost deserted mess hall. Most of the garrison were on leave and there was very little for them to do apart from guard duty which was mostly checking in the drunks through the main gate then watching them stagger across the parade ground, interspersed with endless games of cards and the only medical emergencies she'd had to deal with had been the couple of cases of severe indigestion from too much Christmas pudding. She had missed him badly, the only highlights of her days had been the conversations she'd had with him at least every couple of hours and even the monosyllabic chat she'd had with Sam had seemed like a high spot when she compared it to the rest of her day.

"How long are we stopping?"

"About half an hour"

"Nah, seriously Charles, how long we staying here with your mum 'n dad?"

"I am being serious"

"Nah you're not, are we staying till New Year or what?"

"Christ, no, you're bloody joking" He gave her a horrified look "I thought we could take Sam home tomorrow morning and then push off home ourselves, that way we can spend more time on our own, I want you to myself"

"Is this cos you've fallen out with your mum?"

"No … I want to be at home with you, of course I do ….. well, okay, maybe just a little bit because she really does drive me nuts you know"

"She means well"

Charles threw his head back and roared with laughter "I've heard it all now, you'll be telling me next that our Derek is your new best friend and that the two of you are a match made in heaven"

"Thanks, thanks a bloody bunch, I was trying to forget all about him for a bit"

"Sorry"

"Well stop smirking then"


	12. Chapter 12

"You know what? Your mum always looks at me like I've just taken a dump in the middle of her lawn"

Molly pulled a face as she looked up as they walked up to the front door of Royal Crescent and Molly could feel the oh so familiar sinking sensation of dread in her stomach that spending time with his mother always gave her. She didn't want to be there, she was tired of spending time with people who didn't like her, Eggy had been a complete pig that morning, threatening to cancel her leave and now the thought of an evening sitting with Meg filled her with horror, she just wanted to be with people who loved her "And it's not only your mum, is it? Ian's mum didn't like me neither, must be something about me"

"It's not you" Charles needed to offer some sort of comforting explanation that didn't include his mother's ridiculous assertion that marriage to Molly would wreck his career because she was too common "It's not only you, mum didn't like Rebecca either, I don't think she thinks anyone would be right for me, well maybe Beatrice or the other one whatever the fuck she's called, but I'm not even sure about them"

The row had been brewing ever since he'd arrived on Christmas Eve and had finally erupted late Christmas night when he'd run out of patience with her incessant muttering and face pulling as if she'd been sucking lemons whenever the subject came up of Molly, Molly's family, Molly's plans, the wedding, in fact anything at all to do with the wife that Charles was missing so badly. His mother was obviously suffering from a bad case of selective amnesia when it came to the promises she'd made before the wedding as well as at the registry office when they'd had 'a few words'.

Her weekend stay with them before the wedding had been a strain on everyone, she had, well as far as she was concerned, been doing her best to be pleasant to this girl that her son was so infatuated with, she was there to help get things ready even though it all seemed a bit rushed, almost as though the girl was pregnant which, thank the lord, Charles assured her wasn't the case. Although she'd listened politely and thanked Meg for all her suggestions, she hadn't seemed to need or want any help which had struck Meg as exceedingly ungrateful in the circumstances, after all her family didn't appear willing to put themselves out. Her only help seemed to come in the form of some very common little trollop with a baby who'd spent hours round at Charles' house while her baby screamed the place down, a noise that grated on Meg's nerves, so that all Meg could hope was that she wasn't going to bring it with her to the Registry Office. And that was the other thing that was so upsetting about all this, a Registry Office of all places. As a family they weren't religious and anyway it wouldn't be appropriate or probably even feasible in the circumstances, being second time round for both of them, but not even the Officers Club, or a half decent hotel or any of the other places people could get married these days …. .

-OG-

"Mum, just stop it, will you? I think you've made it perfectly clear what your feelings are, but you are not setting a good example for Sam and please don't make me any sorrier than I am right now that I asked you to be here today"

Charles had finally run out of patience with her so that his calm and controlled manner had been replaced with a cold and stern demeanour that had forced her to stop muttering and pulling faces at his father as she'd whispered her opinion forcibly in his ear at the same time as keeping an appalled eye on the Dawes clan who were gathering on the other side of the stairwell.

Meg had adopted her 'I'm a misunderstood martyr' voice as she'd replied to him with a very insincere apology and a weak smile, she really didn't think she'd done anything to apologise for. Despite her hurt feelings and deeply held conviction that this was a disaster waiting to happen she'd turned and given Molly's family a forced smile for all the world as though she hadn't just been looking straight down her nose at them, then contented herself by tutting loudly at Laura who was desperately pushing the buggy backwards and forwards in a futile attempt to stop Gabe screaming the place down. Molly for one knew that it was just a matter of time before Laura whipped her tits out and she could only hope, for the sake of harmony, that Laura wouldn't hear Meg's inevitable comments about how Gabe should eat his lunch in the lavatory.

Meg had finally accepted the inevitable and had given up on her mission to get him to see that he was making an absolutely disastrous choice of life partner by tying himself to a girl who was undeniably common. His ultimatum before the wedding of 'either turn up or don't, up to you, your choice' hadn't actually made for the sort of family harmony that most people enjoy on their wedding day, and she was even more upset now that he'd found it necessary for some reason to be unpleasantly sharp with her and that was in spite of her keeping her promise, made under considerable duress, to be polite and pleasant to the girl's quite obviously lower working class relatives. Meg was struggling to see anything positive about her son throwing in his lot with a family who wouldn't know what the word work meant, her only hope was that he wasn't going to be expected to help support them financially.

The ceremony had been pretty standard for a Registry Office, or so she believed from what she'd read on-line, and she had actually shed a small tear when he'd made his vows because she wanted him to be happy, she really did, it was just that she couldn't bring herself to believe that this was what would do it.

The so-called reception wasn't much better, there were none of the officers who'd formed a guard of honour outside the church when he'd married Rebecca, just some Scottish soldier and his wife that Meg could have sworn had been drinking even before they got there and who seemed to be indulging in some sort of drinking contest with the girl's father so that Meg couldn't help looking back at his first wedding with some regret. She still utterly disliked Rebecca for all sorts of reasons, actually she couldn't stand the girl even though she couldn't put her reasons for feeling that way into words, but with hindsight she would prefer a re-run of that day to this shambles.

By the time the whole nightmare was over and done with and Charles and the girl were off to the Caribbean on their honeymoon, and her grandson was in the back of the car with his earphones firmly plugged in to prevent anyone speaking to him as he listened to some terrible tinny racket, the base sounds of which were irritating the life out of her as they reverberated around the car, Meg was having the greatest of difficulty in controlling her need to simply howl.

-OG-

Christmas had started almost like old times, just Charles and them but it had ended on a sour note, something that Meg wanted to blame Molly for even though the girl hadn't actually been there. She had quite obviously used her influence on him to turn Charles against his family, well to be specific, against her, because he still seemed to be getting on very well with his father but that was probably because they were two of a kind, both influenced by a pretty face, and what sort of wife was she anyway to stick with her job in the army? In Meg's opinion it was a strange choice, very unfeminine, because surely if she'd wanted to find a job training to be a nurse or a nursing assistant or something she could have done it without joining the army or, as it couldn't possibly be described as a career, well, not the same sort of career as Charles had anyway, she could just leave now they'd got married. Meg's knowledge of army rules about when or under what circumstances you could leave, for example because you'd got married, was non-existent, but she couldn't believe that it wasn't possible if you wanted it enough, especially if your husband was a Major.

Before he'd set off for the station Charles had told Meg and his father that he was intending to take Sam home the following morning and that he and Molly were then going on home to Ash, that they were not staying for the New Year celebrations she'd been planning. Meg had hoped that he would change his mind once Molly got there and he'd calmed down a bit, but he seemed implacable. He was now being even more annoying than before by being unable to keep his hands off her, either holding her hand, putting his arm round her shoulders or kissing the top of her head and on top of that he grinned every time he looked at her and then, the icing on the cake, they'd sloped off to bed straight after dinner. Obviously Meg understood that they were newly-weds and that they'd been apart for a little while, but it wasn't as though they hadn't been sharing a bed long before that travesty of a wedding, so that she wanted to shout "Now who's setting a bad example for Sam?"

All morning he'd walked around the house with that expression of supreme indifference on his face, the one he'd worked so hard to perfect when he'd first gone to Sandhurst, the one she hadn't seen for years, so that when she'd remonstrated with him and pointed out that the family would be very disappointed because they hadn't been invited to the wedding and would be expecting to see him at the party and that, in any case, she'd already told everyone that he'd be there.

She'd raised her eyebrows at her son and pulled one of her 'faces' at him, a face that was designed to show a mixture of her disappointment and disapproval.

"Really Charles, I just don't know what's got into you these days, I'm your mother and you're being very disrespectful, it's going to be embarrassing for me to explain why you're not there"

"I'm sorry Mum, but this is non-negotiable, Molly and I are going home so you will just have to deal with it" He didn't want another row and he didn't want to re-hash all his reasons for wanting to go home, so he just shook his head and rubbed the hair on the back of his neck "You really shouldn't have committed me, us, to anything without checking with us first, should you?"

-OG-

"Home" Molly smirked at him as they draw up outside the little terraced house, so happy that she was almost tearful "Feels like a bloody lifetime"

"I know, hey, I need to go and find some food and we need to put the heating on, the place is going to be bloody freezing and I emptied the fridge before I left"

"Never mind, we can go to bed and get warm"

"Now I know why I married you Mrs James, tell you what, you go and get the bed warmed up while I go and buy some milk"

He was right, the house was freezing cold and also struck a little bit damp, which was ridiculous because he'd only been away for a few days but it had that ultra-tidy, dusty, empty feel to it as Molly went around whacking up the heating and turning on the hot water, putting the lights on and closing the curtains, even though it wasn't actually dark, then putting on the kettle to anticipate Charles' return with milk so that she could have a mug of tea. She looked around her with a big grin. Home, home, yay, HOME!

She'd felt a small stab of conscience when she'd seen the expression on Meg's face as she'd kissed Sam goodbye a few hours earlier and when she'd said farewell to her son and his wife, using a very pained and pathetic little 'I'm so misunderstood and completely hard done by' voice, which Charles took no notice of at all, he seemed totally impervious. He had waited until after they'd dropped Sam back at Rebecca's, even though he was obviously silently fuming, and had then exploded about his mother's Oscar winning performance as the sadly misunderstood matriarch who had everyone's best interests at heart and who only wanted everyone to be happy. Most of the things he'd said about Meg included words like manipulative, snobbish, scheming and selfish, and he'd raged that he'd seen and heard it all before, many times, so that Molly judged it was probably best to leave her 'pouring oil on troubled waters' speechifying until he'd calmed down a bit.

-OG-

"We don't have to go; we can stop here if you want"

"No, it's alright, you want to go and I said we would and you promised Laura, didn't you? I'm just being selfish, I want to stay in bed and celebrate New Year here on my own with my beautiful wife" He snorted a laugh down his nose and chewed at his bottom lip in an attempt to stop his smirk as she mirrored the expression on his face "You go and get ready first and I can lie here and watch you, then I can think about later when I get to take everything off again"

"Are you being dirty old perv?"

"Yup"

One quick phone call to Laura to tell her that they were home had resulted in an ecstatic Laura insisting that they had to come to her New Year's Eve party, that she would have made them number one on the invite list if she'd known they weren't going to be stopping in Bath, and why hadn't they stopped there with the old witch anyhow? She'd then screamed with laughter, a sound that was very much part of Molly's memories of living here when she was married to Ian years before, when having Laura as a friend had almost certainly saved her sanity, and said that she'd just answered her own bleeding question hadn't she, and how was the old bag anyway?

"That's a bit rude Laura, that's my bleeding mother-in-law you're talking 'bout, she's Charles' mum" Molly couldn't quite keep the giggle out of her voice, hard as she tried, old bag and a witch seemed to her to sum up Meg James perfectly.

"Yeah well, you can't have everything perfect, that bloody well wouldn't be fair on the rest of us would it?"

-OG-

"It really doesn't feel like five minutes since we were doing this last year, does it?"

"Yeah it does, well, maybe not in some ways, but it's a bit different, things have changed a lot haven't they? I mean, you've lost your bump and got Gabe instead…"

"Yeah, and you've gone and bagged yourself a bleeding Major and a bloody gorgeous one at that, I mean, I know he's a bit ancient but fuck, how unfair is that?"

"I know" Molly shrugged her shoulders up with a huge grin on her face, then bit her bottom lip "Clever or what?" She giggled as her eyes sought out the tall figure of Charles who, being head and shoulders taller than most of the people in the room, was easy to spot "And Laura?"

"Yeah?"

"He's not ancient"

In a lot of ways New Year's Eve last year seemed like just a few days ago, but in others it was a lifetime because so much had happened since then. She had actually been quite miserable this time last year, had spent most of the evening drinking for England doing her level best to get pissed out her nut which hadn't worked, she'd just got more and more miserable and then got queasy on top, so that she'd longed for it to be midnight so she could slope off to bed and be on her own, to be able to think about him, well as long as the room stopped swaying about. Then when she'd finally been able to, she'd got all brave and sent him a text which he'd answered straight away so that she'd got into bed wearing his sweater, hugging it round her, the sweater that she'd stolen from him the morning she'd thrown her stupid wobbly.

This year was different, she'd been married to him for more than a month, she could look at him across a room and know that he was hers which made it very hard to keep the smirk off her face, she could touch him and kiss him, could strip his clothes off and make love to him whenever she wanted, which was most of the time, except that she couldn't. Most of the time he was here and she was bloody hundreds of miles away putting up with sodding Eggy and his stupid tantrums and a bunch of lads who, although she loved them all to bits, were driving her bloody nuts with their endless piss taking, they had such a long way to go before they were grown up that it felt like being back at school. It seemed like the time that she and Charles could be together 24/7 was still a bloody lifetime away, far too far off for her to start counting the days.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Still struggling with this a little bit, I know exactly where I want it to go, it's just getting there that's the problem, but keeping on deleting and re-writing isn't helping one little bit so here goes. Please review for me.**_


	13. Chapter 13

"Are you having a good time?"

Laura had a worried frown on her face as she asked, bottle in hand all ready to top up Molly's glass, she was still a bit unsure about their friendship even though she'd been a witness at the wedding, it was if she was convinced that Molly was bound to change now that she'd married an officer, that it was somehow inevitable. Molly had had her doubts back in the summer as to whether she'd outgrown this friendship that had once been her lifeline but now she just felt guilty about those doubts and felt this big rush of affection for the other girl. Laura had always been there for her through thick and thin and Molly would have been lost without her in those dark days after Ian and prior to Charles.

Only someone who knew her well would know that Laura was totally and absolutely hammered, she could hold her drink really well, after all she'd had plenty of practice, but there was an unfocussed look about her eyes, as well as the tell-tale tiny hesitations before she spoke, and her speech was ever so slightly slurred.

"Yeah, bloody brilliant thanks"

Molly flung her arm round Laura's shoulders and hugged her, she was suddenly overflowing with happy affection for her, and the odd glass or three of Prosecco, as she hugged the other girl again and looked round the room, eyes again seeking and finding the very tall and dark haired centre of her world who was listening intently to something Steve was telling him, head on one side as he stroked his chin.

"Tell you what, can't wait to be living back here permanent"

"Don't bloody blame you" Laura had followed the direction of Molly's gaze and was now looking across the room in exactly the same direction, and Molly was pretty sure that the other girl wasn't looking so lasciviously at her own husband.

"Oi you, put your bloody tongue away, you can stop that right now"

"What? Don't know what you're on about"

"Yeah you do, perving on my old man, that's what, he's taken" Molly giggled "And before you ask, we don't do wife swapping"

"I'm not perving, I'm just …., looking ….., I'm the bloody hostess so I have to make sure everyone's okay and happy, don't I?"

"He's okay and he's happy, take my word for it, alright?"

Laura had done her best to sound totally innocent as Molly giggled; she knew that she had nothing at all to worry about on that front, from either of them. Laura might well be appreciating his obvious charms but she would never do anything to hurt her and anyway Charles would run a mile first.

"Anyhow, I'm just sayin' so if you're getting any ideas 'bout him you can just forget them, right now, not. gonna. happen"

"I know," Laura smirked "But if you ever get fed up ….."

-OG-

"Are you having a good time? Enjoying yourself?"

"Yeah, you?"

"I always have a good time when I'm with you"

"That's lovely, bloody cheesy, but lovely"

"God, some people are never satisfied, are they?" He smirked and linked his arms round her waist "And you can wipe that smirk off your face as well"

"I don't know what you're talking 'bout" She was giggling as she stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek "It's nearly midnight, nearly New Year and it's gonna be a bit of a funny one this time, sort of different, lots of changes 'n that" She shrugged "Can't wait, well I don't think I can but I'm a bit you know, nervous, I just wish it was all over or maybe just that I knew what was gonna happen"

"Don't worry, it's all going to work out perfectly, you'll be here with me before we know it" He smiled and stroked her hair tucking it behind her ears "I was watching you earlier when you were talking to Laura, shit that woman scares me to death, but I was thinking about how much has changed since this time last year. Last year I was with friends in the pub and all I could think about was this girl, this beautiful girl who'd spent the night with me before Christmas and then I'd managed to royally piss her off and I had no clue how I'd managed it, just that I had and then she sent me a text. It was a Happy New Year and I thought she'd probably sent them to everyone, but it was far and away the best bit of my bloody Christmas"

"It were the best bit of mine when you answered, but don't tell Laura that will you? I had a miserable crappy Christmas, I mean Christmas Day was okay with me family 'n that but then the rest weren't nothing to write home about and New Year weren't neither. I come here 'n I couldn't stop thinking 'bout you, I was miserable, so bloody pissed at meself for being a fuck-muppet, thought I'd blown it"

"Never …"

Before he could finish what he was saying, someone turned the radio up to full volume so that the chimes of Big Ben blared out making further conversation impossible in the small room which was packed to standing room only with Steve's army mates, some of whom had bought their wives and some their girlfriends, if they'd got them. The chimes were the signal for a mass orgy of kissing and hugging and high-fiving as people screamed "Happy New Year" at each other as though the person they were talking to was either stone deaf or living on another continent. Molly stayed glued to Charles, arms firmly round each other's waists as she looked over her shoulder and smiled and nodded and returned greetings, but she had absolutely no desire to be kissed or touched or even breathed on by a bunch of people who were mostly complete strangers and who were, if not already rat-arsed, well on their way.

"Happy New Year Mrs James"

"And you Major James"

She laughed as someone's wife came over and tapped him on the shoulder ignoring Molly completely as she wished him a happy New Year and puckered up for a kiss. He pulled a horrified face over the woman's shoulder, raising his eyebrows and pretending to Molly that he was terrified as the woman then wandered off pushing people out of her way as she stumbled to the other side of the room.

"Do you think someone dared her?" Molly tried hard to pretend that it was a big joke and she didn't care "I don't want to keep harking on, cos we can't have you getting big-headed, can we? But it's a bit worrying how many of these bloody women fancy you, and that would include Laura if she was given half a chance"

He gave a mock shudder at what she'd just said, something that she thought would be better not shared with Laura, and while Charles understood that she was only joking, teasing him, he also knew that there was a little grain of truth lurking in there, a little bit of her insecurity was still there somewhere.

"Shit, don't say that, but what about you, Mrs James, do you still fancy me?"

"Nah, never did really, sorry" She giggled "If you take me home right now though I might change me mind"

"Good idea, let's get out of here" He gave a slightly alarmed look at the group of women standing by the door, one of whom was the girl who'd just breathed gin all over him as she'd done her pissed best to kiss him on the lips.

They escaped soon afterwards, using Molly's imminent return to Yorkshire as an excuse for cutting short their stay at the party which looked like going on until all hours, or at least until the last man standing caved in. Molly wouldn't mind betting that that would be Laura because her capacity was the stuff of legends and she'd be making the absolute most of Gabe's absence at his Grandma's house. Walking home along deserted streets through pouring rain, she couldn't help thinking that once upon a time that would have been her, she would of been the party animal with the reputation, she'd have been the "life and soul" who would have matched Laura drink for drink, but that all that seemed to have gone down the shitter now and she wasn't quite sure why or when it went. Maybe it was just that she'd grown up when Ian and her had been kaput, finished, divorce is a very 'growing up' sort of thing or maybe it was when she'd joined the army or more likely when Charles had come into her life, but, she sneaked a little glance up at the tall man walking next to her with his arm round her shoulders as he curbed his long strides to match hers, she just hoped that sensible didn't mean she was boring.

-OG-

The farther north it got the more depressingly grey the view from the train got, which suited Molly down to the ground because it matched her frame of mind. Sheets of almost horizontal fine drizzly rain swept across the empty landscape making everything look bleak and cold, reminding her of the year before even though there was no snow in the corners of the fields this year, but this time last year she had been miserable beyond belief and this year, when everything should be better it was, in fact, ten times worse. This time last year she'd have been grateful for just a hint that he thought about her sometimes, but now that she knew exactly how he felt she couldn't bear the thought of the endless hours until his weekend off. They'd decided to spend yesterday as an extra day at home rather than have him drive her back, his leave was over and he was back on duty today, but now she wished more than anything that she was sitting in his car, the dreaded Discovery, with him driving.

"You have to ring your mum"

Meg had rung them when they were at Laura and Steve's party, leaving a stilted message on the answer machine, and Charles had so far refused to return her call, saying he would do it 'in a minute'.

"Talk to Mitchell ….. please?"

"I thought we'd talked about this, decided we should wait till the summer when me four years is up and stop changing the subject"

She'd turned and looked at him as he sat propped against the headboard; arms folded behind his head as he bit his bottom lip and watched her drying her long hair on a towel. His breath had caught in his throat as he looked at his bride of less than six weeks standing in front of him wearing just a skimpy camisole and knickers as she got herself ready to leave him to get the train back to Yorkshire.

"I'm not, and I know that you wanted to stay with the lads, with 2 Section, and I know that I'm being bloody selfish but I miss you when you're not here"

"I do love the lads, well most of the time, but I think you know how much I don't wanna go back, how much I'm gonna miss you" She sat down to put on her socks then looked up at him "Okay, I'll ask him, and it'll be good to get away from Eggy anyhow, but you are gonna have to talk to her sometime, you know that, might as well get it over with"

They had discussed at some length before the wedding the pros and cons of her taking the option of asking for a transfer and at the time they'd decided that it was logical for her to stay with 2 Section until she finished, that the lads were her army family, and it would take time to get to know a new Section, for them to feel like her family, and by the time that happened it would be time she was getting ready to leave, but that had been before the reality of the situation had hit them both. Charles hated their enforced separation as much as Molly did.

"Might ask him, you know"

"Who? Mitchell?"

"Nah, just said I'll ask him didn't I? I was talking about Eggy" She took a deep breath "Might gonna have to ask him why he's such an arsehole and what I ever did to him"

"In that case you might want to think about your choice of words" He snorted a short laugh down his nose "Not sure that arsehole will go down that well"

"I got plenty more I can choose from, knob-head, wanker, tosser, shit-bag, what do you think?"

"I think you're taking the piss"

"Nah I'm not" She giggled "Not really and you do have to call your bloody mother" She shrugged "Just sayin'"

The sentry on the main gate exchanged one or two desultory words with her when she arrived at the depressingly grey guardhouse to the main entrance of the garrison, there were large puddles on the parade ground pockmarked with the heavy persistent rain which was turning more and more to sleet and the place looked deserted except for some poor bastard who was marching round and round the edge in full kit, soaked to the skin and obviously in deep shit over something. Molly had rarely seen a more depressing sight and it matched her mood perfectly.

-OG-

"To be frank, I'm only surprised that you haven't applied before Private James, now let me see, I suggest you fill in an official request and leave it with me while I explore the possibilities for you, I'll have a word with your NCO's and then I'll get back to you"

Her request for a transfer had been much easier than she'd thought, she had imagined having to go into all sorts of explanations, why she'd thought that she'd got no idea, he couldn't have been nicer or more understanding about it. He nodded as Molly saluted and said "Sir" and struggled to control the words that were screaming through her head demanding to be said out loud "Bollocks, _bollocks,_ he's gonna ask bloody Eggy, bollocks" She had this horrible suspicion that the little fucker would screw it up for her if he could, give her a shit reference or something, although that obviously meant that he'd have to put up with her being around for even longer. On the other hand maybe he'd tell them that she was first cousin to that Charlie Fairhead bloke from Casualty, well the female equivalent, because he'd just be happy at the thought of seeing the back of her, well if the way he'd been with her since she'd got back was anything to go by he would.

"Hey, how was Bossman?" Dangles caught her up and slung his arm round her shoulder as they walked towards the mess hall together "Are we still going for this piss-up at the weekend then?"

"Yeah, how about Friday? Give us Saturday and Sunday to get over it" She smiled up at him trying her best to stop being a worryguts and a misery and wondered whether to confide in him about asking for a transfer, then thought that on the whole it would be better to wait until she knew what was going to happen, if anything "And Bossman is fine, thanks, missing you lot of course"

"Of course" He held open the door so that she could duck under his arm "You really are getting to be a shit hot liar Dawsey"

"I'm so proud" She pulled a face "You'll bloody miss me when I'm gone" then realised that she shouldn't have said anything as soon as the words had left her mouth "Shit, shouldn't have said that, I mean it's not certain or nothing"

"Don't worry about it, we all knew you'd be off to be with the Boss sooner or later, I mean why would you want to be here with us in this shit-hole when you can be down there with all the posh wankers in the South, going to cocktail parties with the Boss and the rest of the officers"

"Yeah right" She giggled "Who told you that he goes to cocktail parties? I wonder if anyone told him? I mean, I'm his wife and that's the first I've ever heard of it"

-OG-

Another drink was a pretty crap idea, she knew that, but then had one anyway. Her lips were now totally numb and she could no longer taste anything, let alone conduct a proper intelligent conversation, for some reason she kept losing the thread of what she was on about, and had just had a hell of a scare because she'd thought she was going blind until this bloke who was standing next to her at the bar took his glasses off her, she'd insisted on trying them on for some reason and had then forgotten she was wearing them. Her need to explain about how she'd been afraid that she was boring on New Year's Eve seemed to be falling on deaf ears, so she ended up shouting because no bugger seemed to be listening to her and it was very important that they understood for some reason.

She had no clue who'd asked him to come with them, she could sort of remember telling Fingers not to invite him, that if he came along with them then she wasn't coming, but she couldn't be 100% sure that that wasn't some booze fuelled fantasy, that maybe it hadn't actually happened but was just a bit of wishful thinking. She knew that it was a bad idea, a really, really bad idea, to talk to him here, right now, in this bar, when she'd one or two small drinks and someone had tampered with her brakes, but she wanted to know and it seemed to her to be the ideal opportunity to find out. What was it they said? Something about striking while the iron was hot or something like that.

"Oi, Eggy?"

"Just a minute Dawes, I'm busy, you can see I'm talking to someone, just wait a minute"

"Did you forget I'm not Dawes anymore? And I need to talk to you about some'ing …"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thanks for the reviews, please keep on letting me know that you're sticking with me, it makes all the difference. Chapter 14 is almost ready to go and will be posted tomorrow, short of plague, pestilence or Virgin Media throwing a wobbly.**_


	14. Chapter 14

Molly was doing her best to ignore whoever it was that was trying to kick their way out of her head, she appeared to have passed out wearing just her bra and her jeans and one cowboy boot so that she looked like some sleazy stripper and was clutching her mobile phone against her leg, a mobile phone which was vibrating insistently because some inconsiderate bastard seemed to want her to speak. She slowly opened one eye properly and looked around, almost afraid to check where she was, but was then overwhelming relieved to see that she was in her own room, on her own bed although she had no recollection of just how she'd got there and she just hoped it was her that had taken off her 'T' shirt which was now lying crumpled in the middle of the floor. Her phone was vibrating again, obviously whoever it was couldn't take a hint and was determined to make her speak to them, she could only hope that the persistence was because it was her lovely husband, her lovely husband who wasn't there to get her a cup of tea and a gallon of water and painkillers as well as a bucket in case none of it stayed down, her nausea was increasing by the minute as some memories of the previous night started to come back in hideous waves.

She remembered insisting that everyone, not just the lads she was with, but everyone had to tell her whether she was boring and she remembered demanding to speak to Eggy, then before she could get going with all the stuff she wanted to say to him she was sure she could remember being grabbed and hoisted into a fireman's lift by Brains who'd carried her out of the bar telling her that he was only doing what the Boss would have wanted him to. That was the point at which she'd lost it and had yelled and screamed at him and had done her level best to punch seven shades of shit out of his head and shoulders before he eventually put her down whereupon she'd started kicking his shins as hard as she could trying to make him let go of her arms so that she could go back in and finish what she'd started, at the same time as accusing him of being an interfering knob head, and just as soon as she could move she was going to have to go and find him to say sorry and thanks. She also needed to ask him or someone what, if anything, she'd said to the arsehole, she couldn't even remember now whether she'd gone back in or not.

"Hello"

"At last, where the bloody hell have you been?" He sounded a mix of worried and relieved at the same time "Are you okay? Do you need a pint of water and drugs?" He started laughing as she groaned and risked moving her head a little bit, making the little man who was trying to get out so angry that he got himself a hammer.

"Please ….. " She whimpered, trying hard to give him a hint about volume "Could you please just fuck off quietly for a bit … I'll call you later when I'm alive"

"Go and have a fry-up or something, it'll make you feel better"

He was still laughing as though there was something struck him as hilarious, what she didn't know, in her opinion there was nothing even remotely funny about lying there smelling like a yeast infection and tastefully dressed in a bra with jeans and knickers that she'd slept in and wearing one boot, fuck knows where the other one had got to or what had happened to the hoodie that she could have sworn she'd been wearing earlier in the evening, so she disconnected the call without bothering to reply to his totally ridiculously shitty suggestion. In actual fact he hadn't really expected her to answer him any more than he expected her to go and eat a fry-up. It was a very long time since she'd been in that sort of state and he had a moment's real regret that he hadn't been there to enjoy it with her, with them, although she probably wouldn't be in that state if he had been which struck him as a bit of a shame, not that he wanted her to be suffering from a terrible hangover, but that she felt the need to change the way she behaved because of him. Charles didn't often get in a similar state himself, in fact it was very rare as he was a lot taller and bigger than her so his tolerance was a lot higher, but it had been known although Molly had never seen it. He always maintained to her that he only got pissed on the inside.

-OG-

"How's the head?"

"S'alright, well no it's not, it's bleeding well killing me but I thought I'd best come and find you, say thanks for, well you know… and to make sure I never hurt you last night, when I well, you know ….." She shrugged, pulling a contrite face, not wanting to put a list of her sins into words.

"Any time, Dawsey, that's what mates are for isn't it?" Brains was living up to his nickname by filling in the crossword in a newspaper he'd found abandoned on a table in the mess hall, a paper which made Molly's eyes hurt just by the simple act of looking at it. He obviously hadn't got anything like the hangover she'd got which struck her as monumentally unfair.

"Can I ask you some'ing?" She looked around as he nodded "Did I go back in, you know, did I say anything to him?" She bit her lip as she looked at him pleadingly to just tell her, not to wind her up "Have you got any idea what happened to me boot, or me hoodie for that matter? Only I seem to of lost 'em both somewhere"

"Not the hoodie, sorry got no idea about that, probably still back in that pub, but if your boot is the one you whacked round my head when I wouldn't let you go back in and talk to him, so _no_ you didn't say anything to him, it's more than likely still in the car park at the pub"

"Oh shit, sorry" She put out her hand and gripped his forearm "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Noooooo, the bruises will go …. in time, I might have to go and see the medic though, Oh no, that's you isn't it? In that case might wait till your hangover's gone"

"Shit, I am so sorry" He shook his head, a grin all over his face as she went on "I owe you one, do you know where the others are? I've got something I need to tell you lot"

"No need, Dangles told us about it last night when you were out cold in the bloody taxi coming back" Brains pulled a face "Taxi driver was a total wank, made a bloody fuss because he didn't want to take us, reckoned you might spew in the back of his cab but Fingers and Baz was already in there and refused to get out, so in the end he did" He shrugged and thought for a second "Moaned a bit though"

"Shit, I didn't, did I?"

"No, you was as good as bloody gold, when we got back here I just carted you in and dumped you in your pit, you started snoring so my work there was done" Molly could almost see the inverted commas around the last bit of his answer.

"Thanks, I wondered how I'd got there" Molly didn't think the time was right to ask about her 'T' shirt or to start going on about the potential dangers of taking someone who was pissed out their nut and dumping them on their back, on their bed, all on their own, it would have seemed a bit ungrateful somehow after he'd looked out for her like that and nothing bad had happened after all.

"So, what do you think? About me getting transferred out of here I mean"

"Molls, it really doesn't matter what I think, or what anyone else thinks, does it?" Brains folded the paper and pushed it to one side, then looked at her "It makes sense that you want to be with your old man, it's only right isn't it, you should be with him and I always knew he had a soft spot for you didn't I?"

"Did you?"

"Yeah, of course I did, it was bloody obvious wasn't it?" He sniggered "That, or maybe it was a hard spot" He sniggered again as he watched the rosy blush spread up her neck to cover her cheeks as she looked down at her hands, suddenly self-conscious "And as for you, well, you still believe everything you're bloody told don't you?"

"If you hadn't saved my arse last night, I'd tell you just how much I hate you right now"

-OG-

"Sorry, sorry, sorry …."

She hadn't waited until he'd said anything, she'd just launched into her catalogue of apologies as soon as the connection was made, she wished more than anything that she was at home in Ash at that moment, feeling him put his arms round her so that he made her feel loved and secure …. and forgiven.

"Feeling better then?" He didn't wait for her to reply before going on with a smile in his voice "There's nothing to be sorry for, but I'm bloody glad to hear that you're alive now, you at 'never again' yet?"

"Yeah, but I mean it, I am never ever doing that again"

"Nope" He laughed, mainly to show that he meant it when he'd said he wasn't mad, either for her getting pissed or for hanging up on him earlier "Well not until the next time anyway"

"There isn't gonna be a next time" Molly sniffed, her eyes filling with tears of self-pity "I wish you were here"

"I wish I was there as well" He lowered his voice, turning it into a caress "You're not crying are you? Come on, don't cry, it's not that bad Molly, it's certainly not worth crying over, is it? Unless there's something you're not telling me"

"Nah nothing and I s'pose not"

"Course not, now, did you have a good time? Was it worth it?"

"I can't bleeding well remember" She took a deep shuddering breath "I remember wanting to say stuff to Eggy, don't know who bloody invited him, most probably invited himself, Billy no-mates, but then Brains wouldn't let me" She decided to gloss over the way he'd stopped her and the violence with which she'd greeted his intervention, what she'd done when he wouldn't let her have her own way.

"Must remember to thank him next time I see him"

"I already did that" She sniffed loudly again "I lost me hoodie, the one you bought me for my birthday" Molly knew that she sounded about six and as if she was about to start wailing 'It's not fair' any second.

"It's not the end of the world" His voice was still gentle "We'll go shopping when I'm up at the weekend"

Their conversation lasted until her phone started running out of battery and she couldn't immediately put her hand on the charger, but by the time they hung up he'd managed to make her feel better, not only about her missing hoodie but about her favourite cowboy boots now being a single boot which had made him laugh and promise to buy her some new ones along with the hoodie. It was all small stuff but it was incredibly comforting so that she felt infinitely better as she decided to give supper a miss and go straight to bed, especially when he rang back ten minutes later just to repeat that he loved her and was missing her so that by the time she drifted off to sleep she was back in her happy bubble.

-OG-

By the time she got summonsed to the Captain's office she had almost stopped expecting to hear anything about a transfer, several weeks of silence had meant that the euphoria she'd felt when Captain Mitchell had said he would get back to her had slowly seeped away onto the back burner, so that she was once again focussing all her concentration on avoiding Eggy as much as humanly possible and when she couldn't, perfecting her 'Yes Corporal, No Corporal, whatever you fucking well say Corporal' into an art form. She was actually now so proud of her technique that she reckoned she could run night classes in it; it would give her a new career when she left all this behind.

"Stand easy Private, I've got some news for you"

"Sir"

Molly was unconsciously chewing at her bottom lip as she waited for Captain Mitchell to stop faffing about shuffling papers around on his desk while he looked for something in particular, she knew she was biased but Charles would never have done that, he would have been totally organised before he'd called anyone into his office.

"2 Field, Ash Vale, Aldershot" He looked up with a happy beam on his face as if he has just given her a present, so sure was he that she was going to be delighted "They've moved into the old Keogh building, so home from home for you, I presume you did your training there?" He smiled, waiting for her response as Molly nodded realising that it was actually going to happen, or at least she thought that was what he was saying, he hadn't actually said that of course, but it was his way so that you had to try and interpret what he meant and hope that you'd got it right.

"Will I be allowed to live out do you think Sir?"

"I think that'll be up to your new CO, but personally I can't see why not"

"Yes Sir, thank you Sir" The beam that had been threatening to break out on her face finally put in its appearance "Can I ask when, Sir?"

"Oh sorry, didn't I say? End of the month, Corporal Kinders will give you all the details, so any questions, just ask him, dismiss, off you go, James"

"Sir"

She did her best to keep the smile on her face as she saluted him and he smiled back, and then managed to contain herself until she was on the other side of his door, before she started punching the air and yelling 'yay' in her head at the same time as trying very hard to ignore the dismay she felt at having to voluntarily talk to Eggy. She was buggered if she was going to let him spoil this for her, she was just going to stand there quietly in front of him and not say a word while he filled her in on the details, and then she was going to say 'Yes Corporal, thank you Corporal, fuck off Corporal', okay without the last bit obviously.

Working out how long she'd have to wait before she could ring Charles and tell him proved to be another bummer as she grasped the fact that she'd have to wait at least a couple of hours if not longer so she started looking around for someone to share her news with, someone who definitely wasn't Eggy.

Twenty four hours later and she still hadn't managed to get hold of Charles, in her excitement after she'd seen Mitchell she'd totally forgotten that he was out on exercise so that his bloody mobile was switched off the previous evening, but she'd told all the lads who had alternated between being happy for her with hugs and kisses all round and then pretending to cry because she was leaving them, saying that only a farewell booze-up to beat all other booze-ups would help them feel better about it. The whole section had now been stuck in this stuffy classroom since just after breakfast, the lads doing their best to listen to the most boring fucker she'd ever come across as he lectured them about something to do with Health and Safety. She'd got no idea what he was droning on about because she wasn't listening, she simply didn't care, she just wished he'd hurry up and finish so that she could get out of there to check her phone, to see whether Charles had got her message yet.

"Private James, stay where you are please"

Molly's immediate reaction was that she bloody hoped he wasn't going to quiz her on the lecture they'd just been forced to sit through, she hadn't got a scooby what he'd been going on about, but she was also pissed that Eggy had stopped her from leaving with the rest who all had the startled expressions of people woken from a deep sleep when 'Sergeant Bloody Boring' had finally run out of steam, and like the lads she was desperate for a cup of tea as well as to check her phone.

Eggy was standing looking out of the window with his back to her as she stayed in her seat, unsure whether to get up and stand to attention or to just wait till he told her what it was all about, hoping against hope that it was about her transfer and not another bollocking for something.

"So, you're leaving us, surprised it's taken this long"

"Yes Corporal" Kinders had kept his back turned towards her so Molly took the greatest of pleasure in sticking up one finger then childishly sticking her tongue out at his back, he might not like her, but that was nothing to how much she hated him.

"I always knew, you know, from the minute you turned up here all butter wouldn't melt, you might have fooled everyone else, but you didn't fool me for a minute"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Will do my absolute level best to have Chapter 15 finished, it's nearly there, and uploaded tomorrow.**_


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: I don't, or didn't, intend that this should be the end of the story, I always meant it to go on to cover until her four years are up, whether or not she stays in and what happens with the mother-in-law from hell, and I was considering looking at what would happen if her path crossed with Kinders again, so I will keep going for the moment, but I can't help wondering whether people want it to carry on. Some of you are incredibly supportive in giving me the feedback that I need to keep me going, and for that I am more grateful than I can say, and I suppose that almost inevitably a lot of focus has shifted to the start of filming of Series 2, but it's going to be a very long time until we see anything on the screen, so I want to know whether to carry on with CJ and Molly or not.**_

-OG-

She didn't know what to say, well, apart from 'what the actual fuck are you talking about?' so she just sat there and waited for him to give her some sort of scooby as to what this was all about, for once her conscience was completely clear.

"I was never taken in you know, the lads might have been although that wouldn't have been the case if I'd told them what I knew, would it? and the Boss? Well, who knows about him?"

He sounded as though he was just thinking out loud, not as though he was addressing a carefully considered commentary on some aspect of their shared history, and as far as Molly was concerned he wasn't making any bleeding sense at all, she had absolutely no bloody idea at all what he was going on about.

"I'm sorry Corporal, but I really don't know what you're talking about"

He moved away from the window and put his hands on the table in front of her leaning into her body space as she unconsciously moved back angling herself away from him, she could see that there was a vein throbbing in his temple which told her he was struggling not to lose it completely. She might not have known what the hell he was on about, but it was sure as hell making him bloody mad.

Molly just sat and stared at him without saying a word, shrugging her shoulders slightly, she didn't want to argue with him because he was the bloody Corporal, and anyway she had this feeling that he wouldn't listen even if she kept on saying, even if she swore on the bible, that she didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and he was so bloody angry for some reason that he probably wouldn't hesitate to put her on a charge, which was not the way she wanted to end her time in Yorkshire. 'Yes Corporal, no Corporal, three fucking bags full Corporal, can I just piss off out of here now Corporal?' kept running through her head as she sat and waited for him to either tell her what this was all about or to dismiss her and let her go and get a cup of tea.

"You know, when you walked through the main gates that first day, all innocence and smiles, I knew straight off that you were going to be bloody trouble and I knew that I'd seen you before somewhere, it just took me a while to work out when and where that was. You were the last person I expected to see come swanning in here, some little tart that had picked up the Boss in a nightclub. Oh I knew your posting here had nothing to do with you, that it was just a bit of good luck from your point of view, and then you dreamed up some cover story about the poor bastard you were married to before you got your hooks into the Boss, and you expected me to believe it" He gave a short bitter laugh, disbelief written all over his face "Like you expected me not to know that you ran backwards and forwards with every little detail of what went on in this Section, about everything that happened, about all the actions I took or mistakes that were made and what I did and what I said to anyone about anything, nothing was bloody private anymore was it Dawes? You ruined everything with your inside track to the Boss. I worked bloody hard to get things the way they were, and then, from the first day you waltzed in here, I had to start watching my bloody back all the time"

"I'm sorry Corporal, but …. you're a bit wrong cos I never did none of that"

"Are you calling me a liar? Just be very careful Dawes" He voice was full of angry menace as he paused seeming to lose the thread of what he'd been saying, then got himself together and carried on "You think that I'm stupid? Well obviously you did when you thought I was fooled by the little show the two of you put on when you couldn't cut it, when you couldn't keep up, and then that bloody performance the morning after the snow" He started talking in a high pitched voice as though he was mimicking her "Sorry Corporal, but the weather was so bad Corporal that I had to stay the night with a friend' Yes and we all know who that friend was, don't we? Then there was the way he pretended to be annoyed with you when nothing, _nothing_ was further from the truth, anyone could see that, he'd never have put up with any other newbie who turned out to be as fucking useless as you" He leaned further into her space and yelled in her face so that she felt a speck of his anger land on her cheek, a fleck of spittle that she longed to put her hand up and wipe away "And make no mistake, Dawes, as you still are"

"I'm not Dawes, I'm James and I'm not useless" She said nothing aloud just whispered under her breath and watched him, ignoring what he'd said about the Christmas party, he was right about that, but she longed to put him straight about the rest of it, to defend herself against crimes she didn't know she'd committed, there were about a million flaws in what he'd just said but from somewhere came the memory of advice she'd been given once about not answering back and more especially, about never ever pointing out to a superior that he was talking total bollocks, even when he was.

"What did you just say Private?"

"Nothing Corporal" She thought for a second, then burst out "I'm sorry, but I never did none of that, none of that is true, yeah, the Boss and I, we sort of knew each other before I come here but only a tiny little bit cos he was Ian's boss, and meeting him like that in that nightclub, well, it were just ….." She shrugged "We'd only ever met once before in our lives and that had been years before and then I come here and I didn't know he was here, did I? I never got together with him, well not until he left to go off to Iraq. I never had no private chats with him about anything to do with the Section or anything else"

"Well done, another award winning performance" Kinder's slow hand-clapped her so that she remembered just a bit too late that people who don't want to believe you, won't, they'll see whatever you say as you making excuses.

Even as she'd been denying everything he'd said and trying to defend herself from the accusations, most of which seemed to stem from his lack of confidence in his own ability to make the right decisions about stuff, something she understood very well because she knew all about how that felt, Molly also knew that what he was saying didn't make any sense and she was beginning to wonder whether it was her or Charles he was pissed at. It was more than a year since Charles had left to go to Iraq, more than a year since anything that might have been between them could have had anything to do with this man who was standing in front of her with his fists clenched and that vein throbbing away in his temple. So why had he carried on being such a miserable bugger to her all last year? Okay, maybe if he'd believed all that stuff she could sort of understand why he didn't like her or rather why he hadn't trusted her, and even why he might have been a bit of a bully when Charles was boss here, although he probably wouldn't have done that if he was scared she'd run to him, but since he'd left? What the fuck was all that about?

The horrible long, long silence went on and on as she thought about asking him if she could please just go now, he seemed to be miles away, probably thinking about what he was going to say next, and she didn't want to set him off again by asking if she could be dismissed, and anyhow she really needed to get details of her transfer off of him, she definitely didn't want to have to go back and ask Mitchell, that would probably stir up a shit load of trouble, which in her limited experience of the army, she knew would most likely end up on her head.

As she sat there waiting she could hear Charles' voice in her head, something he'd said to her months before when she'd asked him if he knew what Kinders' problem was, something which would sort of suggest why all the shit the little fucker had just yelled at her, something that she'd put out of her mind because it was bloody unthinkable, even the thought of it made her want to shudder.

" …. _, maybe he doesn't like girls with green eyes and long hair, or maybe he likes one of them a bit too much"_

Fuuuuuccccck, she didn't want to even begin to think about anything like that, and anyway she was suddenly sure that Charles was wrong, completely wrong. Yes, Kinders was jealous, but not the way Charles thought he was. Kinders didn't fancy her, it wasn't about that, it was about Charles, not that the Corporal was gay or nothing, it wasn't like that either, it was just that same as all the blokes in the Section he'd hero-worshipped her old man and he was bloody jealous because he thought she'd come in between them in some way. He was like some bloody kid in the playground whose best friend was the one everyone wanted to be mates with, and then the popular kid went off with someone else and he got left behind. She was so busy considering her theory on what the fuck was wrong with him that she never heard what he said as he muttered something, it simply didn't register so that he turned and snapped in her face "I said …. dismissed, James, I said ….. you can go"

"Yes Corporal, sorry Corporal, thank you Corporal" Molly stood up on legs that were shaking so much they didn't feel as though they quite belonged to her, her head was swimming a bit and her hands and feet were freezing cold as she gave him a half-hearted nod, then saluted, not sure what to do or what to say except that she couldn't get the hell out of there quickly enough.

"Corporal?" She'd stopped with her hand on the door knob and took a deep breath, dredging up all her courage as she wanted more than anything else to just open the door and leave "Captain Mitchell told me I had to ask you for details of me transfer"

He nodded without answering her so that she left, not sure what else she could do ….. she didn't go and look for the lads or go and get a cup of tea, she just went straight to her room and sat on the bed, then lay back with her head on her pillow and replayed the last half an hour in her head. She couldn't think straight, this was no longer something to have a bit of a laugh and a joke or a moan about and she was furious with herself that she hadn't put him straight. She'd tried but he wouldn't bloody listen to her so that now she wanted more than anything to talk to Charles but knew she should wait until she saw him, probably even until she got home. It wasn't the kind of thing you could discuss in a phone call because it would worry him and there wasn't anything he could do about it, anyhow he didn't even know about her transfer yet. What was it she'd said about being buggered before she'd let bloody Kinders spoil this for her, well that hadn't quite worked out the way she'd intended, had it?

-OG-

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm just really pleased to see you, 'n I can't wait to get off home"

"Are you sure you're alright? You don't look as if you're looking forward to this very much"

"Nah, I'm fine, I said, can't wait to get out of here, so what time do you think we'll be off tomorrow?" She didn't wait for him to answer before carrying on "I am a bit worried about tonight to be honest, I'm not even sure I wanna go"

What she was worried about was that bloody Eggy would be there, he wouldn't be there to say goodbye to her, something that she wouldn't shed any tears over, but he probably wouldn't want to miss any opportunity of crawling up Charles' arse.

"Hey, don't look so worried, we'll go for one drink and I'm driving so I won't drink at all and then we can get off early in the morning, so …. are you all packed and ready?" He looked at her with his eyebrows raised, convinced there was something wrong that she wasn't telling him, something more than her sorrow at leaving the Section behind "Come on, tell me what's wrong"

Her resolution not to say anything to him while they were in his room at the Holiday Inn, in fact, not to say anything until they got home, if then, just disappeared in the warmth of his concern and his arms round her and she found that once she started to tell him about what had happened she couldn't stop so that it all poured out. What he'd said, what he'd accused her of, the way he wouldn't listen and the way he'd blanked her ever since so that everyone else had noticed and had taken the piss out of her, well, except for one silent meeting when he'd handed her an envelope with the details of her transfer.

"That's a crock of shit isn't it?" Charles shook his head and then smoothed her hair back from her face, resting his forehead against hers as he smiled down at her "Stupid fucker, as if we'd have wasted any time talking about him, we had much better things to talk about and much better things to do if I remember rightly" He laughed as she giggled "That's better, so now that he's history let's just forget all about him, shall we? Remind yourself that he's bloody pathetic, because that's what he is, we should feel sorry for him" He snorted "Not sure I do though, but don't worry I'm not going to challenge him to a duel"

Underneath Charles admitted to himself that he wasn't 100% sure she was right about what was at the bottom of it all, that he'd always had his suspicions about what the problem was as far as Kinders was concerned, he just hadn't dealt with it in the way that he should have and for that he felt enormously guilty. He should have stopped the Corporal in his bloody tracks when he'd first seen the way he looked at her and the way he'd acted around her. She was his wife and he adored every hair of her head and he'd let her down, instead of dealing with it he'd thought it would all go away, so he'd made bloody jokes and he wasn't anywhere near as angry with the Corporal as he was with himself. Molly didn't need for him to go out and slay a dragon for her, if she wanted some dragons slain she'd do it herself, so, much as he'd like to, there'd be no confrontation tonight, he wouldn't do anything to spoil her last night with 2 Section.

-OG-

They were standing at the bar when he got himself a beer and joined the back of the group, Mitchell was standing next to the Major who had his arm firmly round his wife's shoulders as hers curled round the back of his waist, fingers tucked into the top of the rear pocket of his jeans as she leaned against him, as all of them laughed at Mansfield Mike who was loudly insisting on calling himself cupid and claiming full responsibility for getting them together because he'd showed her to Charles' office that first day. He saw the moment that the Major caught sight of him and he watched as the happy laughter drained from his face to be replaced by the stern unsmiling expression that he'd seen so often but never before had it been directed at him, as the Major slowly shook his head from side to side in a combination of deep disapproval and disappointment.

If he lived to be a hundred and ended up as a General, Derek Kinders knew he couldn't possibly regret more than he did at that moment the stupid impulse that had led to him saying far too much to her that morning, the moment when he'd realised that it was all over and that he wasn't going to see her anymore. The one thing he was grateful for was that no-one would ever know what he really thought about her, that his feelings, which he'd managed to keep hidden away for more than a year, would remain his secret and that after today there was no longer any danger of him giving himself away.

-OG-

"Hey, wakey, wakey, sleepy head, we're home"

He leaned across and tucked a ringlet behind her ear as she stretched and yawned then undid her seat belt, and smiled sleepily at him. She'd slept almost the whole way home from Yorkshire, more because she'd been very tired and tearful the previous evening than because of her slight hangover.

"Do you want me to carry you over the threshold?"

"No" She giggled "You'll bloody drop me"

"No I won't and I'm insulted that you think that"

"No you're not, come on let's just get inside" She smirked, suddenly more happy than she knew how to say "I'm dying for a bloody cuppa …. and I need a pee"

"Lovely …. that's romantic"

-OG-


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N: Thank you all so much for the positive responses to my last A/N, they made all the difference. A little while back there was an article published about the relationship between authors of FF and their readers, how it's essentially a conversation, so that unless we get feedback the conversation feels very one-sided, as if we're talking to ourselves, mind you just between us, I do a lot of that anyway. So, thanks again for the encouragement and hope that you enjoy them 'moving on' .**_

 _ **Publishing early today, my bl**dy crown has come off my tooth again so have to go to the dentist – what bliss!**_

-OG-

"What?" She had been admiring his muscles as he'd carried her heavy kit bag and Bergen as though they were light as a feather, luggage which always felt to her as if it weighed a bleeding ton when she schlepped it about, and then after he'd dumped the last of it on the hall floor, he'd turned towards her with this wicked smirk on his face making her giggle as he moved to where she was standing with her back against the front door, her giggle turning into a shriek as he got close "WHAT? What you doing?"

"First" He raised his eyebrows and paused, still smirking "I'm going to get my _beautiful_ wife, and then, when I've got her, I'm going to take her up to bed"

"I'm not tired, been asleep all day"

"So I bloody noticed and I didn't say anything about being tired" He lifted his eyebrows and smirked again "I thought we could have a little welcome home party"

"Who for, you or me?"

"For me of course"

"Idiot"

"Who are you calling an idiot?"

"Stop it, stop it, Charles STOP it, NOW, please" She was giggling full force as she tried in vain to stop his wandering hands from grabbing her as he did his best to pick her up, throwing his head back and roaring with happy laughter as he did it, eventually getting her into a sort of fireman's lift over his shoulder, despite the way she was wriggling and twisting trying to get away from him, all the time giggling uncontrollably. It was all very reminiscent of the way Brains had removed her from the bar that night, although his intentions were very different as he set off towards the stairs.

"Don't you bleeding well drop me" She was desperately trying to control her attack of the giggles, her need to keep laughing out loud was tempered by being just a tiny bit concerned about distracting him from holding onto her firmly as he went up the wooden stairs "Here, put me down, I'll walk"

"Nope, can't do that" He snorted a laugh and tightened his hold "You might run away"

"I won't, promise I won't and anyhow, thought you said I was too bleeding heavy, that carrying me nearly killed you"

"Stop wriggling about then and when did I say that?" He stopped just long enough to exaggerate his slight puffing and blowing "Mind you, I might have had a bloody point"

"Oi you, that's not very nice, is it" Despite her best efforts to sound affronted she failed miserably as he got his foot in the gap and eased open their bedroom door, which fortunately he'd left slightly ajar, and let her slide slowly down his body until her feet were back on the floor, but by that time she'd totally lost any desire that she might have had to escape from his clutches.

"Welcome home Mrs James" His voice was low and deep and husky, his dark brown eyes all pupil as they both stopped laughing and he bent his head to drop one of his incredibly soft and gentle kisses on the corner of her mouth, one of the teasing kisses that she always found so unbearably sexy "I began to think that this day would never come"

"I know, me too"

The mood between them changed dramatically, it was as though someone had switched a light on in a dark room as they began to touch and kiss and hold and then to strip one another's clothes from their bodies, throwing things on the floor, caressing and kissing skin as it emerged from their respective layers until they were both naked and driving each other wild with touching and teasing, then murmuring as they moved against and on top of each other until eventually they lay still, sweating, sated and satisfied on top of the bedding. Neither of them had the slightest desire to separate and become their unconnected selves again, they just wanted the feelings, the sensations that were flooding them at that moment to last forever.

"I love you" Molly murmured into his ear as he tucked his head into the side of her neck moving his body to one side slightly making sure that his weight wasn't crushing her.

"I know you do, almost as much as I love you"

"I love you more" She wrinkled her nose and smirked as he lifted his head looking into her eyes while pretending to think about what she'd just said.

"Nope" She felt rather than saw him shake his head in denial as he put it back against her neck and knew that he was smiling in the same way that she was "That's impossible, and anyway, Mrs James, it's not a fucking competition ….. but if it was" He paused "I'd win every time" He lifted his head again and smiled smugly, then kissed her neck behind her ear "I'll tell you what though beautiful, if you lift your gorgeous little arse off this bed a bit I'll be able to pull the duvet up, it's bloody freezing in here"

-OG-

It was some hours later when they were sitting curled up together sharing a single armchair as Molly watched Pointless and kept on licking her sticky fingers before wiping them dry on his sweatshirt, the one he was wearing and not the Bath Rugby shirt that she'd purloined. He had threatened all kinds of retribution if she got any honey on it as she took the greatest of pleasure in reminding him every time he complained about her using his chest as a hand towel. Charles had been trying to read the local paper over the top of her head while she was fully involved in yelling out answers to Alexander Armstrong, she hadn't watched any television for weeks and had been enjoying it but was now getting thoroughly pissed off when her answers either turned out to be totally wrong or, if by any chance they were right, they had attracted huge scores.

She had asked Charles earlier whether they had any food in the house, trying to sound both plaintive and pathetically exhausted when she said she was starving to death and she'd then widened her eyes and chewed at her bottom lip as she'd asked so that he wouldn't say that she could cook it just as well as he could, which wasn't saying very much at the best of times. He'd smiled down into her face, chewing his bottom lip as if he was also considering his next move, but had shrugged and kissed the tip of her nose before saying that if she wanted a three course meal they'd either have to go out or order a bloody take away because he was far too knackered to start chopping and peeling and all the rest of it, but she could feel free if she felt like it …...

"Toast? wiv peanut butter?" She'd sat up and grinned at him, happy and full of the sort of contentment that had been missing from her life for weeks, as he pretended to heave a long suffering and martyred sigh before lifting her from his lap and getting up to make his way into the kitchen.

"Sorry, no peanut butter, we've got honey"

"That'll do, and why you knackered?" She lifted her eyebrows the same way he did sometimes and started smirking suggestively, making her meaning totally plain "Getting too old are we?"

"No, I'm not, you cheeky whatsit, but we had a very late one last night and then some of us" He paused and tapped his fingers on his chest " _Me,_ have been driving all day, all the way back from Yorkshire while some of us" He stopped again and pointed at her " _You,_ have slept almost the whole day, that's why"

"Oh yeah, forgotten that"

-OG-

The weekend simply flew past until by Sunday evening Molly was once again trying very hard to get herself ready for her return to her real world, for them to go their separate ways again. They had spent the last couple of days talking and behaving as if this was definitely their new reality, but underneath that they both knew it was actually no such thing. She was horribly nervous about the following day, it felt like she was turning the clock back eighteen months to that very first day at Catterick, when she hadn't known a soul, when she'd felt sick with nerves, well she hadn't known that he was there at the time, and although she was obviously far more experienced now than she had been then, there was still this big bit of her that expected to have a struggle. A bit that was scared that she would fail and that if she did, it would be far, far worse this time, because she would be letting him down.

No matter what Charles said about forgetting all about him and not listening to anything he'd said to her, her run-in with Eggy had taken her fledgling confidence, torn it up and left it in tatters so that she was back to being completely unsure of herself. Once again she was worried that people would have a high degree of scepticism for her ability as a medic, or even as a soldier, for them to see her, as Eggy had and according to him, as Charles had done as well, as totally fucking useless, all thoughts and feelings that she'd thought were now way back in the dim and distant past.

On top of that, both of them were behaving as though she'd already got permission to live out with him, but she hadn't, she hadn't even asked yet, and there were never any guarantees, she knew that.

"S'posing she says _no?"_

"Why would she do that?"

"I dunno do I? Just s'posing … what am I gonna do then?"

"She won't, now stop worrying" He picked her up and settled her on his lap, he could feel just how tense she was as she shook her head in irritation with him for not suppling an answer to her question "Okay, well in that case, not that it's going to happen, but we'll be able to see each other on days off and in the evenings and we'll still be better off than when you were up there and I was down here" Even after he'd finished trying to reassure her, her shoulders stayed almost rigid with anxiety so that he felt this tidal wave of guilt that he was the one who'd persuaded her to ask for this transfer away from 2 Section where she'd been happy and settled, apart from her on-going daily battles with Derek Kinders who was, as far as Charles was concerned, lucky that he could still walk and talk.

"Look, Mandy Barnes is a very good CO, it will be fine, she will be fine, and if I have to I can always send the boys round to break her kneecaps"

"Yeah very funny, bloody hilarious" She paused and thought about what he'd just said "Oh shit, please tell me she's not another one of your bleeding fan club, I've really had a fucking basinful of them what with bloody Kinders 'n that"

"Molly, I know I said to just forget him, but I do think we are going to have to talk about Kinders" He looked as a horrified expression appeared on her face "No, no, alright not tonight, and I have not got a fan club, well apart from you, and Mandy Barnes is probably about the same age as your Nan"

"What, you think me Nan is too old to be in your fan club? She's most likely the biggest fan you've bloody well got what with you having a pretty face 'n that, well your biggest fan apart from bloody Eggy of course, but I don't want to even think about him right now" She bit her lip and looked up at him then burst in spite of what she'd just said, she burst out "But, Charles, what if he's right and I am fucking useless?"

"He's not right and you're anything but useless" He tightened his hold on her.

"You might be the one what's wrong"

"I'm never wrong" He put his finger down and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him instead of avoiding his eyes by looking at her hands as she twisted them together in her lap "Where's the Molly who told this poor army Captain when he was only trying to rescue her to mind his own fucking business?" He snorted a brief laugh "Oh and then told him that he could take his sorry and shove it up his bleeding arse?"

"I dunno" She started giggling in spite of herself "And you're not a poor anything, okay, sorry, but I were a bit upset at the time"

"I know you were, but please, whatever you do, don't let the bloody Kinders of this world upset you, they are not worth it, and he's _really_ not worth it"

-OG-

The one thing that she hadn't taken into consideration when she'd tossed and turned, wide awake for most of the previous night as she listened to his quiet breathing and worried about what it was going to be like to be the newbie again, to arrive at Keogh, to be back to square one, back to not knowing anyone or anything about anything, she'd forgotten that the six months of her training that she'd spent there meant that although it had seen some changes it was still reasonably familiar territory. She knew how to find the noticeboards with the squaddies' room numbers on it and she knew where the barrack rooms and the mess hall were so that she didn't have to find someone to ask, she just had to find a Corporal Smith to report to and then to get the key to the room that she hoped she wouldn't be using so that she could dump the stuff that she'd lugged all the way up there 'just in case'.

"Private James?"

Corporal Smith was very tall, reed slim and immaculately turned out from the top of her sleek black hair in its flawless bun to the mirror-like shine on her boots, the sort of girl who would normally intimidate the fuck out of Molly and make her feel like a little scruffy kid again, but Corporal Smith didn't have that effect on her at all. Molly wasn't sure whether it was because she was a very beautiful black girl with the warmest and friendliest smile in the world which she was at that moment directing towards her, white teeth gleaming so that Molly instantly felt better, or at least not as if she was about to puke at any second.

"Yes Corporal"

"Come on then let's get you settled"

The Corporal had chatted away to her as they'd walked together towards the accommodation blocks and although she hadn't actually carried anything or offered to help, something that Molly knew would never happen in about a million years, she had a way of making Molly feel as though she was welcome so that she looked back to her first meeting with Kinders and how different that had been. This couldn't be more unlike her welcome that day if Corporal Smith knew all about her previous experience and set out to make sure it would be 100% different.

"Main parade ground in an hour" The Corporal had shown her to the right floor and indicated her room, then smiled "Do you know where that is?"

"Yes thank you, Corporal"

Some things didn't change, and Molly still struggled to unlock the door to her very small and very basic room, she hadn't said anything to the Corporal about wanting to live out, she wasn't sure what the right procedures were and wished more than anything that she'd thought to ask Charles, but then felt as if she probably would be better off waiting and asking the Captain. It was chilly and stuffy in the little room as though it hadn't been occupied for some time and Molly went to feel the old-fashioned large radiator under the window, a radiator that was absolutely stone cold so that she would have to ask someone how to turn it on. Even if she got permission to live out she was most likely going to have to stop in this room for a couple of days and it was bleeding uncomfortably cold.

"Well, bugger me, look who's shitting well turned up, you following me about or something?"

-OG-


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N: Okay, so here we go building a picture of their lives together as a married couple in order to create the back story for their future.**_

 _ **Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it; it's back to parallel universe time for me, so please review it if you can.**_

-OG-

"Jacks!" Molly spun round at the sound of her voice, there was absolutely no room for it to be a mistake, both the accent and the language belonged to her erstwhile next door neighbour, a face and voice from her past that couldn't have been more welcome "What you doing 'ere, no-one told me you was 'ere, fought you went off to ….. dunno now, somewhere else, not that I'm not glad to see you … "

"It's good to see you as well, and I did go somewhere else, I went to Sierra Leone, you know, for all the Ebola stuff, but everyone's back now so I've been here for a good few months"

"That must have been a bit shit"

Jackie looked at her in silence for a minute or so and then burst out laughing "You might want to choose a different word there, Molls, but yeah you're right it was a bit, very busy and a bit scary at times, but I'm glad I went, it was definitely worth it"

Molly felt a huge pang of envy, not that she wanted to go off to do something risky, at least she didn't think she did, she didn't want to leave Charles so that he'd have loads to worry about or anything, but she couldn't help envying Jackie her deployment. She'd been somewhere where she'd been able to put all her training into practise and had maybe helped save lives. Treating some dick-head who'd given themselves indigestion from eating too much Christmas pudding wasn't quite the same ball bag.

"I heard you got married" Jackie was now sitting cross-legged on her bed as Molly took some of the basics out of her kit bag "You know that you've broken a whole load of bloody hearts, don't you? Shattered all those hopes" Jackie laughed as she took in the puzzled expression on Molly's face as the other girl turned to look at her "No, not you, dummy, I'm not talking about you am I? I'm talking about him, about all those girls who fancied their chances before you came along and put paid to it for them"

"What you talking about?" Molly looked at Jackie's broad grin and the way she shrugged her shoulders "Oh please tell me, not you as well?"

"No not me, I'm not talking about me, well, no more than anyone else, but I can't believe that you don't know that everyone with a freaking pulse fancies him"

"That's gross, Jacks … shit ….. that's my old man you're talking about"

"So what you doing here then? Why aren't you shacked up with him in some cosy little love nest somewhere? Lucky cow"

Jackie walked with her to the main parade ground both of them wallowing in their sense of deja vue, and had listened to her explanation about not having permission to live out and about how much she was dreading asking although she didn't mention her 'conversation' with Kinders even when Jackie begged for news of mutual acquaintances. Finding Jackie there was like finding a security blanket for Molly, a security blanket who was doing her level best to be as reassuring as she could that there was no need to worry about their CO, that she was a 'pussy cat', especially when compared to some of the other female officers. According to Jackie they were some of the 'bitchiest bitches from hell' who were jealous of any girl who was younger and prettier than them, so that Molly had a fair idea of what Jackie had experienced from someone as she then proceeded to entertain her with a series of horror stories. She couldn't be quite sure whether Jackie was exaggerating or not, but she was bloody relieved that their CO was apparently the good 'un, as Nan would say, she was nervous enough already, her nausea had returned full force as they'd walked onto the parade ground, she didn't need to feel that she was going to be reporting to Godzilla on top.

"Welcome aboard Private James, I'm sure that you'll find that this is a happy ship and you'll soon settle in, now have you got any questions, anything you'd like to ask me?"

"Yeah, thank you, Si …., I mean Ma-am, I'd really like to live out if that's possible, I mean, I got married a while back so I'd like to live with my husband, if I can that is, I mean, if I'm allowed"

"Oh of course, I've just placed you, you're married to Major James aren't you?" She shuffled some papers and looked down at her desk which was covered with neatly organised piles of paperwork, reminiscent of the way Charles did things at Catterick, bearing no resemblance at all to the disorganised muddle that Mitchell favoured. Captain Barnes seemed to Molly to be just like they'd said, well that Charles and Jackie had said anyhow, she seemed to be nice, well-spoken, well, posh really, middle-aged and civilised and she looked like she would favour saying _yes_ whenever she could. What Molly didn't know was that Mandy Barnes was scanning the top of her desk, not as Molly thought trying to locate some form or other but because she was doing her level best to hide her surprise at the youth of the girl standing in front of her. There was obviously a pretty big age gap between this girl and her husband.

"That won't be a problem, Private James, just make sure you fill out the correct paperwork, Corporal Smith will help you with that, and make sure that you know your duty hours, when you are rostered on and just as long as you understand that living out is never an acceptable excuse for being late for duty _at any time_ , but then you will know that already, no need to remind _you_ I'm sure" She looked up as Molly muttered "No Ma-am" and shook her head vigorously, trying not to grin, she couldn't believe that it was going to be this easy after spending half the night awake and worrying about it. "I don't see any reason why you shouldn't live out straight away, but just be aware that if we are deployed anywhere at any point, or if you are required to for any reason whatsoever, you will need to move straight back into barracks regardless of any … private commitments … you may have, is that understood?" Mandy Barnes hoped that she hadn't come across as making a snidey side-swipe at who this girl was married to, being married to a Major meant 'jack shit' when it came down to it, there wouldn't, indeed there couldn't, be any special considerations.

"Yes Ma'am, thank you Ma-am"

Molly wanted to high-five this woman, or at least give her a massive hug, but contented herself with a salute and a huge grin that almost split her face in two, a grin that she couldn't put away as her new boss looked up and grinned back at her, her expression softening as she looked at the girl standing to attention in front of her. A pretty little thing with lovely eyes who'd managed to snare one of the best looking and most pleasantly professional soldiers that Mandy had come across in her years in the RAMC, and the older woman wondered just how much jealousy and resentment Molly James had encountered since she'd married him. She suspected that her Corporal, along with a number of the other girls, had, in the past, had a bit of a crush on him at some point and, if she was being honest she'd include herself in that number even though she could no longer be described as a girl. She wished for a moment that this girl hadn't been posted to her command, life would be so much easier if Molly James had been sent somewhere else. Mandy had absolutely no desire to get on the wrong side of a Major.

-OG-

"We're going to have to sort you out some sort of transport aren't we? Of your own"

He grinned as he turned to glance at her as they sat waiting to pull out into a gap in the rush hour traffic, so far he'd resisted the temptation to say 'Told you so' when she'd called to tell him he could pick her up after work and that she was allowed to live out, he didn't want to do or say anything to blunt the bubble of sheer happiness that was surrounding her.

"In case you've got to go in and I can have a bit of lie in"

"What, you wouldn't get out of bed to take me to work?" Molly pretended to be surprised then horrified "What you thinking of then, getting me a bleeding bike?"

"That's a good idea"

Molly gave him a withering look but didn't bother to reply, she just ignored what he'd said "Anyhow, you never have a lie in, you're always bleeding wide awake in the morning" She looked at the smirk on his face "What did you call it? Being a fully functioning soldier" She looked again at the smirk on his face which, if anything, had got even wider "I'm not talking about _that,_ so you can stop being so bleeding cocky"

"I never said a word"

"You didn't have to"

"I was just thinking that maybe we should get you your own car, you can drive can't you? Legally I mean"

"Yeah course I can, well, sort of, I mean I'm allowed, I passed me test when I was still with Ian, but that was bloody years ago and I haven't driven much since, well …. not ever actually" She shrugged then smiled at him "Still, can't be that hard to be shit-hot at it, can it? I mean look at the people what can drive and that's mostly everyone" She paused "Can I choose?"

"Shit, what have I just let myself in for?"

-OG-

Charles was watching some travel documentary while Molly updated her Facebook profile and began messaging her family and friends, before starting to look at cars on the net, she had absolutely no idea what sort she should be looking to get or what sort of price range they would be looking at, she just wanted it to be something small, red and sporty looking, something that she'd be able to get in and out of without flashing her knickers to the world, or to the car park at least. Charles wasn't nearly as interested as she wanted him to be, he didn't really want to turn the television off to look at car sites on line and there were some other things she wanted to talk to him about as well, although it was really because he was engrossed in some programme about Alaska while she was getting bored, after all this was the first evening of the rest of their lives.

"Charles?"

"Hmmm?"

"You know how we haven't actually lived together before? Only the odd day or week or whatever"

"Yep I'd noticed that, why?"

"Well we've never sorted who's gonna do stuff, have we" He looked at her with a puzzled frown on his face as if he hadn't got the faintest idea what she was talking about and he still kept one eye on the programme he'd been watching before she'd begun to get bored "I mean, who's gonna do the dishwasher and put the rubbish out 'n things like that?"

He smirked "That'd be you"

"Right, and who's gonna clean the bathroom and hoover the floors 'n stuff?"

"You?"

"What you gonna be doing then?"

"I'm sure I'll think of something"

"You'd better not be saying what I think you're saying, cos that's not a bleeding chore is it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, what's not a chore?"

"I've told you before, stop being such a cocky bugger"

"I'm not" He laughed "I wouldn't bloody dare"

-OG-

They had bickered on and off for days about whether or not she was going to go with him to visit his mother for Mother's Day, the subject had just kept on rearing its ugly head. It was an unresolved issue because Molly reckoned that hell would freeze over before she'd set one foot back in Royal Crescent and that he could go and see the old witch on his own, something he flat out refused to even contemplate. They reached a compromise of sorts when Charles offered to insure her and to let her drive his beloved Discovery to Bath, as a sort of incentive for her agreeing to go with him, and because she'd had her car for a couple of weeks she accepted without much trepidation so that he wondered whether it was the best idea he'd ever come up with.

Even though she'd had her car for ten days, and it wasn't red ….. or sporty looking, but silver and titchy, far too titchy for Charles, he reckoned that he couldn't get his bloody legs in and out of it and that it would be like sitting in a roller skate, it had taken her a fair bit of time before she'd actually driven more than round the block when he was out. She'd made all sorts of excuses that she had to get used to it because she hadn't wanted to admit that she was shit-scared of all the other cars on the road. She was convinced that the drivers were all bloody nut-jobs who were like her Dad and hadn't ever actually sat a test or even bothered about lessons to get a bleeding license, cos it had certainly never stopped him from getting behind the wheel of a car. Two weeks practise had given her a tiny bit of confidence so that by the time they got onto the M4 she found she was actually enjoying herself.

"Did we win?"

"Win what?"

"The fucking Grand Prix, that's what"

"What?" They had pulled into the services on the M4, a stop that couldn't come quickly enough for Charles who'd spent the last 30 minutes with his eyes glued tight shut, as he'd gripped the side of his seat, knuckles white, at the same time as he'd pressed his foot hard down to the floor on a phantom brake pedal.

"Nothing" He shrugged his shoulders and snorted a laugh down his nose, then shook his head at her triumphant grin at having managed to get where they were without hitting anything or scratching his precious car and she'd even managed to park ….. in a bay … at a reasonable angle.

"Was I going too fast, I mean, I'm not gonna get a speeding ticket or nothing, am I? I LOVE driving this car it's really cool and I never thought I would cos I hate it usually, but I do …. love driving it, I mean, can we swop?"

"No, no and not in a million bloody years, and no, you're not going to get a speeding ticket because there's far too much traffic for that, but you might possibly get a ticket for driving like a bloody lunatic and for scaring your husband to death, I'd quite like to live if it's all the same to you"

"I never … did I? Oops, sorry" She began to chew her bottom lip as she tried not to giggle and then widened her eyes in an attempt to pin a contrite, or as near to contrite as she could get, expression on her face "Do you wanna take over then?"

"Too bloody right I do … but I'm not going to, so just do me a favour and stop laughing , it's not in the least bit funny trying to scare me shitless"

-OG-

Not holding out a lot of hope for an ecstatic welcome meant that Molly's heart was in her boots as they walked hand in hand from the car to the beautiful front door of 20 Royal Crescent, despite the fact that he kept squeezing her hand, trying to give her some moral support, Molly was pretty sure that Meg would still look at her as though she'd just had a shit in her flowerbed, despite the fact that she and Charles had now lasted more than three months. She was as sure as eggs were bloody eggs that that was about the time span Meg would of put on their wedded bliss. She was carrying a hand tied bouquet of Gerbera daisies for the old bag, although she didn't think that they would actually make a bloody speck of difference, but it made her feel better to not arrive at the witches coven empty handed. Charles had shaken his head and told her that his mother didn't deserve them and Molly had been desperate to agree with him, but had kept her mouth shut. She was getting quite proud of her new-found ability to keep her gob shut in the face of severe provocation, but then she'd been getting some practise in lately.

"Charles, darling, I thought that must be you, how lovely to see you" Meg's face was wreathed in smiles as she bustled into the hall from the kitchen, obviously thrilled to hear his key in the lock, to see him, it had been months since their last visit which hadn't ended spectacularly well "Oh, you didn't tell me you were bringing Molly with you" Her smile dissolved from her face instantly, she obviously wasn't nearly as thrilled to see her daughter-in-law as she was to see her son "I wasn't expecting … I thought …. I hope there's going to be enough food to go round" She reluctantly took the flowers that Molly was proffering "Thank you dear, that's very kind of you"

She couldn't have sounded or looked less sincere if she'd stood in front of a mirror and practised so that Molly was all set to retreat but Charles put his hand in the small of her back, his long fingers nudging her to keep on going towards the woman who'd given birth to him as Molly considered her options, favourite of which was to turn tail and tell him that she'd wait for him in the car.

-OG-

-OG-


	18. Chapter 18

"Mum, you know you always make enough food to feed the whole bloody street" He rubbed his hand through the curls on the back of his neck and took a deep breath "Happy Mother's Day"

He passed Meg a tasteful looking silver envelope with its very expensive card inside and a small gift wrapped parcel as Molly moved awkwardly to one side feeling in the way before she felt his none-too-gentle prod in her back as he did his best to propel her further into the hallway and through into the kitchen.

"I'll wait in the car" She managed to half whisper it at him behind his mother's back as Meg went rushing off to turn down the gas under a saucepan which was bubbling furiously, water spitting all over the kitchen floor.

"No, you bloody well won't, don't be ridiculous, you're not going anywhere"

Molly bit down hard on her bottom lip so that she could concentrate on the pain and distract her attention from the tears of humiliation which were determinedly pricking at the backs of her eyes. He wasn't nearly as irritated with her as he'd sounded, at least she hoped not, he was stressed and embarrassed by his mother's behaviour, but she so wished that she really and genuinely didn't give a shit that Meg seemed to hate her, but Meg was his mum and Molly did care, she couldn't help it, unfortunately she hadn't got the faintest idea what, if anything, she could do to sort it out.

"I'm surprised, I would have thought you would have gone to see your own mother today"

Meg still sounded as though Molly was about as welcome as a piranha in her goldfish bowl as Molly smiled, or as near to a smile as she could get, and wished more than anything that she'd done just that, Belinda would have welcomed them both with wide open arms. Instead they'd sent her a huge and wickedly expensive bouquet that Molly knew her mother would love and that her siblings would be absolutely furious about, they'd consider it as evidence that she was showing off, even though she'd made a big point of telling them she was sending it and that it was a one-off, that it was because she was going to Bath for the day rather than going home to east Ham to spend the day with Mum.

"Well, what wiv all of us, Mum won't be on her own and Charles wanted to come and see you"

Molly felt rather than saw the utter astonishment on Charles' face as she came out with such a whopping great big porkie and then resolutely refused to look at him, she wouldn't meet his eyes, and anyhow she knew that his mask would most likely have slipped into place by now. She had been intending to choke down a single bowl of the soup that Meg was stirring for all the world as if she was trying to murder it, and to then make her excuses, a headache was probably favourite, and to go and wait in the car. Now she wasn't so sure that she would be able to choke down anything at all, she'd been starving an hour ago, her stomach growling with hunger, but strangely enough her appetite had now definitely gone AWOL.

"Where's Dad?"

"In his shed I think" Meg still had her back to them as Molly turned and caught his eye then shook her head furiously at him, warning him to not even think about disappearing into the garden leaving her there at the mercy of his bloody mother with her personality disorder.

Lunch had eventually been ready and after Meg had refused her offer of help to lay the table, it had limped on. Molly was keeping her mouth firmly shut as she picked at her food, turned down the pudding and listened to Meg talk about people she didn't know, people she'd never even heard of before and wasn't in the least bit bothered about, and listened without making any measurable response as Charles and his dad kept on trying to include her in the conversation. She was past being co-operative, as far as she was concerned there wasn't enough wine flowing freely in her direction for her to make any effort, she couldn't actually be bothered to try and ingratiate herself with the bloody old hag and was furious with herself for not sticking with her original instinct to give the whole visit a swerve, and she was just as furious with Charles for persuading her. She knew that she was now behaving like a sulky teenager but she no longer gave a shit.

They had their first real row in the car going home, he said how sorry he was about the way his mother had behaved but Molly felt like being bloody unreasonable, she knew that she was being utterly unfair and that it so wasn't his fault that his mum was such a poisonous cow, but she was lashing out some of the humiliated anger that had been building up in her over the last two hours. Anger that, when mixed with wine even if there hadn't been enough of it in her opinion, became a pretty potent mixture. Eventually they'd stopped yelling at each other and had lapsed into complete silence, a silence which lasted for more than an hour as both of them stubbornly refused to be the first one to speak. They'd made it up of course, because once she'd calmed right down she couldn't bear the grim expression on his face any longer, so a hand on his thigh and a muttered 'sorry' was enough to make him take his hand off the wheel and cover hers, for him to smile at her and shake his head as he insisted that he was the one who should be sorry and that he was, very sorry, a sentiment that Molly thoroughly agreed with but said nothing about, she didn't want to fight with him anymore.

There was a tacit agreement between them not to talk about Meg anymore, awkward as it was, Charles knew that she wouldn't be willing to go to Royal Crescent anymore and he doubted whether he would be making frequent visits either. There would be no pressure on Molly to try anymore, because as far as he was concerned, she'd done her bit.

-OG-

As soon as Molly felt that she had settled in the weeks started flying by towards "D" day, decision day, when her four and a bit years were up, when she'd promised that she would give notice of her intention to leave the army, when she wouldn't sign another contract, when she would keep her promise to him, but the nearer it got to the date the more unsure about it she got. It wasn't that she didn't love him anymore, she did, she loved him to bits, and their lives were, on the whole, everything that she wanted them to be, but she couldn't forget that surge of envy that she'd felt, the one that she still felt really, at what Jackie had done, it was what they'd both trained for and it wasn't ever going to happen for her.

Memories of Kinders and 2 Section were fading nicely into the background, she still missed the lads a bit, but the day to day of life at 2 Field had taken over. The atmosphere was pleasant, although Molly sometimes felt that the Corporal was watching her, that she was waiting for her to slip up, so that she wondered whether the big fat gob of Kinders had spread his poison as far as this. She actually had no idea that Corporal Smith burned with jealousy, that her vigilance had far more to do with the other girl's need to reassure herself that Molly couldn't possibly have perfection in everything. Molly spent a lot of time with Jackie, their duty shifts coincided so that their off duty did as well, which meant that the other girl was a frequent visitor to their house in Ash and surprisingly got on incredibly well with Laura, which Molly maintained was because they had a lot in common. They both had the hots for her husband and neither of them were in with a prayer, she and Charles had joked about it and he'd made her promise faithfully not to leave him on his own with either of them, a comment that she didn't share.

A very pregnant Laura had denied it of course, she reckoned that her days of lusting after any bloke were well and truly finished and that once her second little bugger, a souvenir of the New Year's Eve party, was born she was swearing off men for life. Molly had giggled and reminded her that she'd said that when she was pregnant with Gabe, but Laura maintained that what she meant was that she was going to make sure this time, that she was never having sex again when she was pissed. Jackie had suggested it might be easier if she just went on the pill, but Laura swore that she had such a shit memory she could never remember whether she'd taken the bastard thing or not especially when she was pissed and that that was how she'd got 'caught' again.

It was Jackie that noticed him, so that she kept on looking off to one side of the parade ground as they walked in the warm spring sunshine towards the mess hall to have a cup of tea before Molly made her way home. It was a rare early finish for the pair of them and Jackie intended to catch up on some sleep while Molly was going to make the most of it by sitting in the sun in the back garden trying to get a tan on her legs that didn't come as a chemical in a bottle. She was going to look through some holiday brochures or go on line and have a butchers because Charles had said for her to pick somewhere warm for them to have a holiday, he reckoned he was sick of needing to huddle under the duvet when they had sex.

"Do you know him?" Jackie nodded her head to where he was standing on the edge of the parade ground.

"Who you talking about?"

"Him, that bloke over there watching us, no, don't look, shit too late, he's coming over"

"Fuck, fuck, fuckety shitting fuck, that's not some bloke that's me bleeding husband, I mean, me first husband, what the fuck's he doing here?"

"I didn't know you had one, blimey Molls, you don't half have a complicated ….. look, I'll leave you to it, I'll speak to you later"

"Noooooo, Jacks, don't you bloody dare …."

It was too late, there was no stopping her as Jackie scuttled off constantly looking back over her shoulder at Molly as she stood still and ignored her first instincts which were to run away with her, then waited for him to catch up. She remembered now that Charles had told her when he'd first got back from Iraq that Ian was in his command, that they'd talked about it, but she'd chosen not to think about it after that, on the 'out of sight, out of mind' principle.

"Molly"

He looked and sounded just the same, as if he was thrilled to see her and as if it was more like three days since she'd last seen him not more than three years with all the crap that had gone on in between "I heard you were here, God, it's lovely to see you and I must say you don't look any different, well, except you're even more beautiful if that's possible, even in that get-up"

"What's that on your chin?" She smirked at him and put her hand up towards his face and pretended to touch him and wipe something off it "Oh, look it's just a bit of bullshit, don't remember you having much of a problem with girls wearing this get-up, funny that"

Even as the words left her mouth she was telling herself not to get involved in this sort of banter with him, it sounded like she still cared that he'd been slipping it to bloody Jessie when she'd been wearing her combats, and while he was still married to her, she should just nod hello and walk away, then get herself a cuppa, find Jackie and go home to her sunbathing and holiday brochures.

"Well, we all make mistakes sometimes and I made a bloody massive one, still I paid for it didn't I? Still paying for it now"

Molly knew he was talking about Jessie, and there was a little corner of her brain that was ecstatic that he thought he'd made a mistake, that's if he wasn't lying of course, if she remembered rightly he was bloody good at that. The best bit was that she didn't want him anymore, he stood there in front of her smiling, the bloke who'd broken her heart once upon a time, someone who'd made her change her whole life to the one that had ultimately given her Charles, and he couldn't hold a candle to him, she should be grateful.

"How is Jessie?"

"No idea, it didn't work out, probably for the best"

"Thought the two of you had a kid"

"No, I know there was a rumour went around, I think she might have started it herself when she was trying to get me to do what she wanted, but no, free as a bird, that's me"

Molly wasn't going to enter into any sort of discussion or argument with him as to whether he was telling her the truth, she was pretty sure that she'd heard that they'd had a son together, or maybe it was a little girl, she couldn't remember because she'd done her absolute best to forget all about it, about him, but she'd have to check with Laura before she was certain.

"Anyway, what about you, I heard you got married, you married the old man, didn't you? Bloody turn up for the books that was"

"He's not old"

"It's what we call him sometimes, it's just a name, Molls, the Boss, the Guv'nor, the Old Man, but having said that, he is a bit on the old side for you, isn't he?"

"Nah"

Ian laughed and slung his arm loosely round her shoulders, inviting her to go and get a cup of tea with him, insisting when she protested that she wasn't sure it was a good idea, asking her to tell him where the harm was and then saying that they had loads of catching up to do and that he couldn't wait to hear how all the Dawes clan were getting on and whether there was ever any chance of Nan forgiving him.

Suddenly Molly found that she was enjoying herself, she was sitting at a small table in the mess hall, drinking tea and laughing and joking with someone who'd once made her cry herself to sleep at night, not that she'd ever admit that to anyone, but someone who'd now lost all the power he'd once had to affect her in any way that mattered. He was right, they did have a lot of ground to catch up on, three years is a very long time after all and a lot of water had gone under the bridge. So engrossed were the pair of them in their conversation as they talked over one another and laughed uproariously that neither of them noticed the tall dark-haired man standing near the doorway watching them, or saw the moment when he put his hand on the back of his neck and rubbed it through his curls, or when he turned on his heel and left, leaving them to it.

-OG-


	19. Chapter 19

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes" He shrugged "Why wouldn't it be?"

"I dunno, you tell me, what's up with you? Why the bleeding long face?"

"Nothing's wrong and I haven't got a long face" Despite what he said, he was making it absolutely obvious that there was something wrong, he'd been 'Major Stern' all evening and had hardly said a word to her, answering in monosyllables and now he was walking off as she spoke to him, a thunderous expression on his face.

He'd walked away from the mess hall earlier that afternoon with what felt like a million different explanations whirling through his head, although he was horribly afraid that logically there was just one, and then, when he'd got outside he'd been filled with regret that he hadn't just walked over there and spoken to them, but he hadn't. Instead, he'd spent the rest of the afternoon being unable to concentrate properly and had kept on telling himself that he was just being jealous over nothing and that it was stupid, that she would tell him all about it that evening, that they would laugh about it later, but she hadn't done that either. He stopped half way out of the door and looked back to where she was standing "Did you have a good day?"

"Yeah, it was okay I s'pose, why?"

"Are you going to tell me about it then?"

"Tell you about what?"

She knew she sounded snippy and defensive, all evening she'd had this horrible suspicion that he might know that she'd spent the best part of a couple of hours that afternoon laughing and messing about with her ex-husband but hadn't said a word to him about it. That somehow her twitchy guilt had made her over-sensitive and edgy with him all evening and that she should have told him all about it as soon as he'd come in, that she didn't even know now why she hadn't. She wouldn't be very happy if it had been the other way round, if he'd spent the afternoon laughing and messing about with Rebecca or with one of his other bloody horde of admirers and then hadn't said a word to her about it, mind you if that _was_ what was wrong with him she couldn't for the life of her think who could have dropped her in it, surely not Jackie, but on the other hand with his bloody fan club it could have been just about anyone.

"I said are you going to tell me, Molly?"

"Wish you wouldn't talk to me like I was one of your bloody squaddies" She couldn't say anything now, it would look as if she was only telling him because he'd got a cob on, as though she'd been deliberately hiding it from him.

"I'm not"

"Yeah you are, you bloody well do it all the time"

"I saw you"

"You saw me, what?"

Inside her head she was screaming, shit, shit, shit, so it was that, but why hadn't she seen him, and where the fuck had he seen them? Must have been in the mess hall cos they hadn't been nowhere else and what did he think he'd seen? Or was he lying, had someone told him and maybe embroidered it a bit and he didn't want to say who it was? And why hadn't he just come over and spoke to them if he'd seen them and most of all why the fuck hadn't she bloody told him, she should have done because she hadn't been doing anything wrong. All she'd done was have a cuppa and a chat to someone, someone who used to be very important to her, but who wasn't any more.

"I saw you with him, and I can't help asking myself whether that was the first time you'd spent time with him without telling me? And asking myself why exactly you didn't tell me"

"Cos there was nothing to tell?"

She shrugged, now finding it well-nigh impossible to meet his eyes. There wasn't anything to tell, not really, but he most likely wouldn't see it that way and Ian had always wanted her, even when he couldn't keep his bloody hands off other women or off one particular woman anyhow, well, one that she knew about. She'd enjoyed that couple of hours today being made to feel as if she was the one who was attractive and desirable but way, way out of someone's reach for a bloody change. She wasn't used to feeling like that, she was far more used to feeling like she wasn't quite good enough and that there was this queue of girls forming behind her, girls who were older, smarter, less common, less useless than her, girls who were just waiting to step into her shoes when Charles got fed up.

"Well in that case why didn't you say anything? You've had plenty of opportunity"

"You sound like you're bloody jealous" She looked at the expression on his face and shook her head "I can't believe it, you are, you're jealous of _him_ " She shrugged again "Jesus, I had a cuppa with me ex, that's it, that's all, nothing else, what, you think I'd mess with him is that it? That him and me would go and have a nice cosy little shag somewhere for old time's sake?" She raised her eyebrows and laughed "You do, don't you? That is what you think" Charles shrugged but said nothing to contradict her "I can't bloody believe you'd think that, shit, its nearly five years since him and me was together and you were there the night he pissed all over our marriage, and its more than three years ago now since I even talked to him" She snorted another wry laugh "If I remember it right it was the day I threatened to cut off his dick with a breadknife"

"I don't remember saying anything at all about the two of you going off somewhere and having a shag, as you so elegantly put it, so why would you think that? What put that idea in your head?"

"I dunno, do I? And I never did anything, we just had a chat that's all and I dunno why you're such a snotty pig sometimes, look, just get out the way" Molly pushed past him putting on the parka which had been thrown over the bottom of the banister rail, and thrusting her feet into her crocs which were laying abandoned at the foot of the stairs, considered looking for her phone and her keys for a split second, and then didn't bother as she marched towards the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk, I need some fresh air away from here, and don't bleeding well follow me"

"I wouldn't dream of it" He was still looking down his nose and talking to her in the clipped and superior tone of voice that matched the expression on his face. Until the actual moment she opened the front door to go out into the dark street he really expected her to think better of it, to turn round and come back, to stand in front of him and carry on shouting at him, he really didn't expect her to actually go anywhere "Molly, don't be so fucking stupid, it's dark and its cold out there, and it's raining, and where the fuck are you going anyway?"

She didn't bother to answer, didn't look back at him at all, just stubbornly marched out of the front door, then stopped outside and pulled the collar of her parka up round her face because she hadn't actually registered that it was not only very chilly but that he was right and it had bloody started to rain as well, a cold, fine drizzly rain that dripped off her face and soaked the fur collar of her coat and her hair. Her backless clogs meant that her bare feet were quickly squelchy and soaking wet, not to mention uncomfortably cold and she had absolutely no idea at all where she was going to go or even how she'd managed to get herself into this sodding mess. The last time she'd thrown this sort of tantrum and had marched off into the night there had at least been some justification for it, but not this time, this time it was totally down to her. That didn't mean, however, that there was any way on earth that she was willing to just turn round and go back with her tail between her legs, her pride wouldn't let her for a start and on top of that there seemed to her to be something a bit wrong here and she didn't know what it was, just that it was something more than her having a cup of tea with Ian and not telling Charles.

He stood at the window and watched her in the light of the street lamps as she marched off down the road, shoulders hunching against the rain with her head down, long hair getting wet so that by the time she got a few doors down to the corner of their street it was plastered to her head. He wasn't really worried, he thought that she was being overly dramatic and that it would take her about five minutes at the most before she'd start to calm down, turn round and come back. He actually had no real idea of how or why that had all blown up in his face the way it had, okay, he'd been annoyed so he'd been a bit distant with her all evening, he certainly hadn't been very happy when he'd seen her sitting chatting and laughing with Ian. So she was right, he was jealous of how happy they'd looked together and then, when she hadn't said a single word to him about it, he'd been a bit, well resentful he supposed, but with good reason as far he was concerned. It was dark and cold and wet out there and she had no phone or money with her so he was pretty certain she'd be home in a few minutes and then it would all blow over and they'd make up. Her only other option would be to go to Laura's and he knew she wouldn't do that unless she really had no choice.

-OG-

She'd been gone for more than twenty minutes when he started to pace backwards and forwards between the front window with its view of the street and the table where his cup of coffee was sitting waiting and getting cold, and he started to check his watch continuously. Finally he'd taken the cup with him and was sipping cold coffee as he stood at the window and looked out at the empty wet street, getting worried now that there was still no sign of her. It was nearly an hour when he gave up telling himself not to panic and called Laura, but she and Steve were obviously out somewhere because the phone was answered by the baby sitter and Laura's mobile was switched off as well, so Molly obviously wasn't there, so where the fuck was she? No matter how jealous he'd been, not even in his worst nightmares would he believe that she was with Ian, but he couldn't possibly just sit there any longer and wait, he was far too restless, so without bothering to find a waterproof of any kind he grabbed his keys and went to look for her.

The adrenalin from flouncing out had, as it had the last time she'd done it, worn off very quickly as she walked or rather trudged along streets that looked vaguely familiar from when she'd lived there almost five years earlier. It had been hot and sticky the last time she'd pulled the same stunt, and she remembered that someone had been having a barbecue that night, the smell had made her hungry, but this time it was dark and it was raining steadily and nothing could be further from her thoughts than food. She was cold, wet and miserable as well as very tired and still had no clear idea of where she was heading, so that eventually she found herself outside a house with a big tree and a wall that was either the same house or one that was very similar to the one she'd sat on the last time. She did the same thing and sat down, huddling under the tree for what little shelter there was, grimacing and shivering as the cold and the wet from the top of the wall seeped up and soaked into her jean-clad thighs and bum.

It didn't come as a huge surprise when she saw his car coming down the road towards where she was sitting; it was going really, really slowly as he checked both sides of the street to see if he could spot her. Somewhere deep in the morass of self-pity and righteous anger that was clouding her brain she was relieved to see him, she supposed that she'd known all along that he wouldn't just leave her out there, that eventually he would come and look for her.

"Molly" He'd leaned across to the passenger side of the car and pushed open the door, using a jerk of his head to indicate that she should get in the car next to him "Oh come on for God's sake, be a good girl and get in the bloody car"

It was probably just about the worst thing he could have said and in just about the worst tone of voice because it underlined everything that she saw as being wrong between them, so she just ignored him and looked the other way, then moved further into the deep shadows cast by the tree, she certainly wasn't about to just do as she was told, give in and meekly get in the car to go home.

-OG-

He said nothing else, just waited a couple of seconds to see what she'd do, then parked and sat there for a little while, obviously still waiting for her to do as she was told, then, when it became evident that she wasn't going to do that, got out and walked towards where she was sitting still studiously ignoring him. He sat on the wall next to her without looking in her direction or saying a word.

"Leave me alone"

"I can't do that" He turned and looked at her shaking his head then rubbing his hand through the wet curls on the back of his neck "It's bloody horrible out here so do you think we could go and sit in the car, I'm frozen so I know you must be, not to mention fucking soaking, so let's just go and get in where it's warm and dry"

"Everything's always about you innit?" She gave this short laugh even though she couldn't see anything even remotely funny about any of it. He put his hand out ready to steady her when she got off the wall and she wanted to stubbornly refuse to get in the car, to march off but Nan's words from when she was a kid about "cutting off your nose to spite your bloody face" kept running through her brain, and he was right, as usual, she was absolutely soaked and frozen stiff. She stood by the car and waited for him to open the door.

"But you're wrong, this is not all about you, this is about me and I'm bloody sick of it, I'm sick of everyone always telling me that I'm too young or that you're too old for me and that includes you, you say it all the time as well, Ian this afternoon, and Laura and every other bugger, even me Corporal said as how she was expecting me to be older than I am before she met me, but I'm not a bloody kid, Charles, so please stop treating me like one"

It was on the tip of his tongue to retaliate with "Well stop behaving like one then" but he managed to reign in his tongue before he made things a whole lot worse as he acknowledged to himself that he was still annoyed with her and that he just wanted to go home. He was also convinced that she was 100% wrong in what she'd just said "I didn't know that I was"

"Well you are, you do, you're always in charge of everything, you're always telling me what to do and I'm bloody well sick of everyone thinking I'm not good enough, or posh enough, or I'm too common or some'thing, and of people thinking that I'm too young, or too stupid or fucking useless or whatever" She took a deep breath "Do you love me?"

"What sort of question is that? Of course I love you, you know that"

"Then how could you think that I'd do something like that, and with him of all people"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Guilt, jealousy, thinking that you and only you are right, all feelings that rear their ugly heads during the so-called honeymoon period of the first year especially where, like Molly, you are convinced that everything will be perfect once you're together 24/7. Me and my hero had more fights in our first year than at any other time since, so maybe I'm a bit of a cynic, but I think Molly and CJ stand more chance of a HEA if they become a marriage of equals …**_

 _ **Very stressful weekend, we put my little treasure into kennels for one night so that she could get used to it before we leave her there for two weeks when we go on holiday. She, of course, loved it and I was a complete wreck. It was worse than my daughter's first day at school and I had to be physically restrained from phoning them every hour to check on her. Have just told my hero that we are not going anywhere where I can't take her with me …**_


	20. Chapter 20

"I didn't say anything like that" He raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath, biting his bottom lip and trying not to get any more irritated with her than he already was "Please can you not do this to me Molly"

The minute she got in the car the warmth and the comfort proved to be the last straw as far as Molly was concerned. He was obviously irritated as though he thought she was making a fuss about nothing, that she was trying to make him feel guilty, which she supposed she was in a way. But the tears that she had been suppressing for weeks, the tears that been prickling and bubbling away under the surface ever since Kinders had set out to destroy her confidence, and Meg James had finished the demolition job, now all began to leak from the corners of her eyes and she could do nothing to stop them. She did the unthinkable as far as she was concerned, and burst into floods of tears. Molly prided herself on being 'hard as nails', she didn't bawl and she was really proud of that, saw it as a real strength but now it was as if a stopper or a plug had been pulled out. A torrent of tears poured down her wet face and dripped off her chin into the wet fur of her collar, her nose running almost as much at the same time, as she gulped and shuddered and sniffed, the pocket of her parka had failed to provide her with the tissue she so desperately needed, so she simply sat there and let her tears and snot run down her face, just occasionally wiping her finger under her nose.

"For God' sake, tears aren't going to change anything" His initial reaction was to allow himself to get even more irritated with her than he already was as he told himself that tears wouldn't influence him, that they would achieve precisely nothing, so that he wanted to tell her to pull herself together. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to turn her round to face him, but she shrugged him off, her whole body still wracked with the sobs that were beginning to make him feel at a bit of a loss. Molly would get damp eyes occasionally and blink a lot at some sad film or something on television, and she would get a bit sorry for herself and have a little grizzle when she was badly hungover, but she never, ever cried, not like this, so that he was suddenly appalled, mostly at himself. He could only ever remember her crying like this once before and that had been when he'd made some stupid joke about inviting Ian to a dinner party, but Kinders, his bloody mother or even the things that had happened on that night so long ago now when her world had come to an end and she'd ended up sitting in his car, just like this, through all that she had stayed dry-eyed, none of it had ever got to her before and made her cry like he just had.

She took a deep shuddering breath and tried to talk through her tears "I told you, didn't I? I said, didn't I? So why didn't you fucking listen to me, Charles? And anyhow, this is not about you, I said, didn't I? this is about me"

"I know you told me and I really should have listened to you, I'm sorry, I never meant to upset you like this ….. come here" He put his arms round her and pulled her towards him. Her back was initially rigid with resistance, with her determination not to let him comfort her, but then she breathed an exhausted sigh, softened and let him cup her face into his hands, as he kissed her hot wet forehead, then, when she closed her eyes, her eyebrows and her eyelids and then her wet cheeks, at the same time as smoothing her hair back from her forehead and running his hands through hair that was dripping wet, before moving back to kiss her forehead again. Her tears eventually slowed to a crawl as she tried to pull herself away from him but he hugged her a little tighter and kept on murmuring 'don't' as if he was repeating a mantra.

"I have never, not even for a single bloody second, ever thought that you were too young or not good enough, or useless or anything like that"

"If you say so" She shrugged, her voice still thick with tears and sounding dubious as though she either didn't believe him or she didn't want to "You might not of, I dunno, do I? But there are plenty of other people who have thought it, and that still do"

"Molly, I am not in the least bit interested in anything anyone else thinks or what they say, I've told you that"

"You might not be, well, so you say, but I am, I care"

"I've told you, don't listen to my mother or to fucking Kinders either, just don't take any notice of them"

"See, you're doing it again, Charles, you're treating me like a little kid, you're patting me on me head and saying "There, there, I've told you, don't take no notice of what the nasty people say" She turned and looked at him full in the face for the first time since he'd sat next to her on the wall "Anyhow that's bleeding easy for you to say, innit?"

"I know and I don't mean to make it sound as though I think it's easy because I don't, think it's easy I mean, but I really don't know what else I can say. I know it's hard and I would love to be able to put a stop to it, especially from my mother, but there isn't anything I can do, is there? Too many years of being told that I have to behave like a gentleman even when I don't fucking want to" He kissed her again on her forehead "Kinders is different and you're absolutely right, I should never have tried to protect you from knowing … I don't know, like you needed someone like me to rush in and fight your battles for you, I should have treated you as an adult and told you what that was all about a long time ago" He took a deep breath and shook his head "I knew he had a crush on you, Molly, well it was obvious, to me anyway because I could read all the signs, I knew from the way he couldn't keep his eyes off you, probably because I felt exactly the same way myself and I knew how bloody upset he was going to be when you picked me, but I should have warned him off, and I should have warned you about him as well, so that you'd be ready when he behaved like the total arse he is" He smiled and shook his head slowly from side to side chewing on his bottom lip "Believe me I'm really sorry that I didn't do that"

"Shit, are you sure about that?" She raised her eyebrows as she looked at him and he nodded "It's not cos he thought I was telling tales or nothing?" She paused and shook her head "Not what he said?" Charles shook his head slowly "Oh yuk, I don't think I even wanna think about it"

"Look, I've never thought that you're a kid, it's actually the last thing I think and if I do keep on telling you that I'm getting old, I don't mean to and it's because I worry sometimes that I am much too old and boring for you"

"Nah you don't, you don't think that at all" She paused as if she was weighing up what he'd just said "Do you?" She thought again for a few seconds then shook her head "Nah, sorry, don't believe that for a minute, and anyhow there's plenty of other women what don't think you're too old and boring isn't there?"

"I don't know and I don't bloody care either, I am not in the least bit interested in anyone else, I only want you and I obviously haven't told you often enough, but I thought you knew that you're all that I care about" He wiped away the last of her tears from under her eyes by moving his thumbs across her cheekbones and whispered "Can we go home now?"

"What, back to the house what's full of the stuff that you had from before we was together? Where for all I know it's the stuff you picked when you was with Rebecca, I mean even the bloody sheets on the bed and the fucking paintings on the walls are the ones you had in that flat in Yorkshire, and you know some'ing, Charles? sometimes it really don't feel like it's got anything much to do with me at all"

"What? He shrugged, looking as puzzled as he felt "Molly, there is nothing in the place from when I was with Rebecca, I didn't take anything when I left, I didn't want it, if you don't like something, then just change it"

"You telling me that you don't mind? You never said"

"Of course I don't mind, and 'you never said' either" He mimicked her "You don't have to ask me, do you? you know that and you don't have to wait till I say you can before you do anything for fuck sake" He tried to laugh "I just wish you'd said something before, I thought you were happy"

"Well, I was, I mean I am, it's just that sometimes I get a bit….. I dunno do I?"

He paused before saying anything else and looked at her woebegone little face, at her swollen and reddened eyes and her nose that was still running a little bit so that she was sniffing occasionally, despite the fact that she'd spent a fair bit of the last hour or so telling him that she wasn't a child, and she wasn't, but at that precise moment she looked about the same age as Sam did when he got upset "You can do whatever you like whenever you like, except maybe burn those bloody paintings. They cost a fucking fortune so if you want to change them we'll sell them or put them in the loft or something, whatever you want, but do you think we could go home now ….. please? I'm bloody sure that there's someone watching us"

"Probably a local peeping Tom" She sniggered "Saw you kerb crawling 'n stop and pick me up from sitting on that wall" She started laughing "Poor bugger hasn't had much to look at has he? Nothing to get him all excited, mind you on the other hand it could be someone who thinks we're out here on the rob"

"In that case, let's just go home before the police get here"

As he put the keys in the ignition and started the car he took another quick look at her, relieved that she'd stopped crying and started laughing, had even made a joke, or tried to, and he made a private promise to himself that he would be far more careful about the way he spoke to her in the future. She was right, he'd been guilty of treating her as if she was a child, or as if she was still one of his squaddies, of telling her what to do and even what to think, instead of asking her what she wanted and what she thought, and then listening very carefully to her answers. He just wanted her to be happy, well for them to be happy together and he was suddenly scared that that wasn't going to happen, that he was running the risk of losing her.

-OG-

Mad, brain scrambling lust meant that they barely got through the front door before their lips were locked together and they were desperately doing their best to wipe the last couple of hours away. Climbing the stairs and going up to bed was far too far for the urgent need they had to hold and touch each other and to be skin to skin, but the trouble with that was that once it was over, a rug on a hard wooden floor was dreadfully uncomfortable. It had been undignified and incredibly exciting and when they'd been rolling around on the floor Molly had banged her elbow hard on the wooden leg of the coffee table, something that hadn't seemed that bad when she'd done it, but which was now killing her. Her elbow was bright red so it was obviously going to turn into a beautiful shade of purple, and although she was one hell of a lot warmer than she had been earlier, even her feet had warmed up nicely, her wet hair was sticking to her neck and back and it felt horrible where she was laying on it.

Later, much later she grinned up at him as she stretched and giggled "You gonna let me get up?" She was basking in his slow lazy post-coital smile as he lay on top of her, all the time looking at her as though she was the most precious thing he'd ever seen, let alone touched, his elbows and forearms supporting his weight, something which she knew was most likely killing him on the hard floor, but she was just happy that he looked happy again "I need a shower, need to wash me hair, it's all cold 'n wet 'n horrible"

"It's beautiful, gorgeous, like the rest of you"

"Liar, me eyes all swell up and I look like a bloody pig when I been crying"

"No you don't, you look beautiful, you always look beautiful"

"Told you before, you really need to go to Specsaver's mate"

His answer was to shake his head, laugh and kiss her, as he stood up and put his arms out to pull her to her feet, then started to look round the room for his clothes which appeared to have been abandoned in a trail that led through the house from the front door. Their shower wasn't the sort you could share, there was barely room in it for one person and there was definitely no room to have sex and anyway there was nothing to hold onto, not to mention the slippery floor, and a lack of water pressure which meant that it took all Molly's time to wash the shampoo out of her hair let alone get up to anything else. So he sat on the closed toilet seat and watched her, waiting for the moment when she would turn it off and he could wrap her up in the warm towel he was holding and take her to bed.

-OG-

She was sitting in bed waiting for him when he came back in the bedroom with just a small towel wrapped round his hips.

"That's better" She giggled "You smell all lovely now"

"Thanks" He laughed "Better than smelling ripe?"

She had insisted that he had to go and have a shower before he got into bed with her telling him that he was minging, although it wasn't strictly true, it was mainly because he'd whipped the towel off her and had then kept running his hands over her body while she was trying to use the hairdryer making it impossible for her to concentrate on what she was doing. If she couldn't stop him she was going to end up going to bed with wet hair so that she'd have a curly tangled bird's nest by the morning, one that she wouldn't even be able to get a brush through.

"Sometimes when I look at you, you know, like now" They'd snuggled up together in the middle of the bed, cosy and comfortable and sleepy "I think about what me Nan used to say, that to be careful when things look like they're too good to be true, it's usually cos they are"

"What are you talking about, Mrs James? I'll tell you what, I've got a much better idea, let's not worry until there's actually something for us to worry about"

"But….."

"But nothing, if you start looking for things to worry about, you'll be bound to find something" She turned over so that he could spoon himself against her back "Stop worrying, even when you're not saying anything I can hear your brain whirring away worrying about things you think you should be worried about"

Molly nodded and felt his arm go over pulling her in close to him as he lifted the hair from the back of her neck and kissed her, getting ready to drop off to sleep together in a warm and contented bubble. But even though she was completely exhausted, she couldn't just switch off and stop worrying just like that, he didn't understand, he couldn't possibly, because even after all the tears and the upsets of the evening she still hadn't said a single word to him about the one thing that was her main worry, she didn't know how to or even where to start.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you for your reviews and for your on-going support, I really appreciate it, I hope that you are still enjoying this. I will have Chapter 21 ready in a day or so, (I hope so anyway) it's almost finished so it will be as soon as possible anyway.**_


	21. Chapter 21

"Shit, you made me bloody jump"

She had been miles away in her own little world washing up saucepans and knives and clearing the aftermath from the pasta sauce she was extraordinarily proud of making, sauce which was now sitting cooling on the cooker waiting to be heated up and shown off at dinnertime. At the same time she was listening to an Elton John CD, not that she was all that keen on him, well that was a bit of an understatement really, but he was one of Charles' favourites so she was making a massive effort to try …. when he'd appeared in the kitchen a good couple of hours before she'd expected him home. He put his arms round her from behind nuzzling her hair to one side of her neck and kissing round to her ear before resting his chin on top of her head and sighing, all without saying a single word. Still without speaking he moved his hands up under the 'T' shirt she was wearing until he reached her bra, and then rubbed his thumbs slowly over the white lace turning her nipples into thimbles and creating sensations that made her lean back against him, initially tilting her head back and trying to see his face, then giving up and closing her eyes, peeling off the marigolds and dropping them on the floor.

"Hello soldier, you got fired or some'ing?" She made another, more successful attempt to look up at his face "What's up, cat got your tongue? "

"Nope"

"Well, talk to me then, 'n what do you think you're doing, you 'aven't even said hello yet?"

"Hello …. that's enough bloody talking" He laughed "Nice 'T' shirt by the way"

"I thought so" She looked down at his 'T' shirt which she'd 'borrowed' and which was now covered in splashes of the tomato sauce she'd been cooking so that she pulled a slight face, not sure now whether the stains would come off.

He snorted out another laugh then turned her round and bent his head to kiss her, tongue moving against hers as though it was at least six months since they'd last seen each other, not less than six hours since they'd got out of bed. Molly, to spend her day off pottering about, shopping and window shopping on-line for new bedding and doing nothing very much else at all until she'd had this brilliant idea about cooking and Charles, well, allegedly he went off to do a full day's duty as a fully functioning member of Her Majesty's armed forces.

"I see you've missed me" She giggled at the expression on his face and at the hard evidence of just how glad he was to be home, evidence that was currently making itself very much felt through his combats as it nudged against her stomach while he put his head back and laughed, then started to kiss her neck again as he fisted a handful of hair and pushed it out of the way to the back of her head. He was chewing at his bottom lip as his eyes locked onto hers and he smirked as he slid his 'T' shirt, the one she was wearing, over her head leaving her naked from the waist up apart from her scrap of white lace and still with her back pressed up against the kitchen sink.

It was his turn to laugh at the expression on her face as picked her up so that she wound her legs round his waist and he looked around for somewhere to put her so that she could perch and they could be on the same eye-level "I'd put you up here" He laughed and nodded his head gesturing towards the evidence of her attempt at a vegetable pasta sauce which was littering every surface "But there doesn't appear to be any bloody room"

"That's your fault, I was just clearing up when you bloody come in and distracted me, and you still haven't said how come you're home so early"

He let her slide down his body until she was standing in between his legs then bent his head and took one taut nipple in his mouth over the rough lace of her bra, grazing it between his teeth and then looking up and grinning as he let her go slightly to that he could speak, his breath warm against her body as his fingers returned to the other nipple "I came home early to see you because I was sitting there in my office all afternoon thinking about my gorgeous wife and wondering what she was doing and whether I could go home and do it with her, or whether I could suggest something else that we could do together"

"Did you think of anything, you know, have you got some'ing in mind?" Molly said it as innocently as she could manage then put her head back and smirked, her eyes closing as she tried to pretend that she could ignore what he was doing with his lips, his tongue and his fingers but then couldn't quite manage it "Can we go to bed now?"

"I thought you'd never ask"

"Oh, didn't know you was waiting for _me to ask_ " She managed to get a fairly credible expression of fake surprise onto her face and then enlightenment into her voice as he scooped her up again and took the stairs two at a time.

-OG-

"You're wearing too many clothes, you know that don't you?"

"You'll have to let go if you want me to take anything off"

He was laughing as he looked down at the tiny space between them, a space that was created by the fact that her small fingers were inside his clothing, tightly curled round him, words that made her tighten her grip even more as she whispered "Yeah I know" and felt him twitch in response but made absolutely no attempt to let him go so that he groaned and closed his eyes, then put his own hand down and unpeeled her fingers one by one from where they were wrapped round him.

Ever since her massive melt down a few days before they had both been very, very careful of one another's feelings. Although they had, on the surface, made up, kissed, forgiven and forgotten, and had a lot of sex, there was still a desperate need in both of them to reassure, to show their passion for each other. Despite everything that had been said and done she still felt there was edginess between them that she blamed herself for entirely. If she hadn't been so stupid, if she hadn't sat there and chatted with her arsehole of an ex-husband and if she hadn't thought that it would be a good idea to keep it secret, then none of it would have happened in the first place, and if she hadn't felt so bloody guilty afterwards she wouldn't have yelled all that stuff at him. She wished more than anything that she had a tardis so that she could put things back the way they had been before.

The stuff that she'd said to him, the accusations she'd flung at him when she'd been feeling guilty and trying to justify herself at the same time as feeling really sorry for herself were all true, it wasn't that she'd made stuff up or anything, but it just didn't feel as if it was anywhere near as important as she'd made out, well not now it didn't, now that she felt like she'd wrecked everything.

"I'm sorry"

"What for, what have you done now?" His voice had become low and gentle and his face had softened almost as though he'd been airbrushed, a complete contrast to the way he'd looked a short while before when she'd come back to earth and looked up at the way his eyes glittered, at the flush on his cheekbones and at the way his stubble shadowed jaw was clenched with that particularly intense look of concentration so that she'd been overwhelmed with feelings for him, had wanted to crawl inside his skin with him. Now he looked totally relaxed and happy and was smiling as he stroked her hair back behind her ears.

"I'm just really sorry about all that crap the other day, I know you keep telling me to forget it, but I can't, it's not the first time I've behaved like some sort of raving nut job is it? You must be bleeding fed up of it, I know I would be"

"Molly, stop it, stop beating yourself up, we've already talked about this and you're not a nut job, there's nothing for you to be sorry about, we had a row, that's all it was, it was a row, and I'm sorry that it happened too, but it's not as if you took a breadknife and threatened to cut anything off is it?" He nudged her, doing his best to bring the smile back to her face "Please can we just forget all about it now?"

"I could do that if you wanted"

"Do what? Cut something off with a breadknife? No thanks" He kissed her, stretched and swung his legs off the bed, then started pulling on some clothes "Tell you what, gorgeous, you finish cooking whatever it is you were cooking that smells so bloody amazing and I'll clear the kitchen, I'm starving"

-OG-

He very tactfully didn't mention the rather liberal amount of chilli that she'd added to the sauce, so much that they'd needed to drink glass after glass of water as they ate it, or rather as Charles had eaten it, Molly had abandoned hers after less than half a dozen mouthfuls when her lips started tingling and went numb and when her nose and eyes had started to run.

"Sorry" She giggled "I think I might have got a bit carried away there"

"It was lovely, I like spicy food" He grimaced then raised his eyebrows and smiled apologetically "Although maybe not quite as spicy as that"

"I know, I think I get a bit ….sort of generous with the garlic 'n the chilli 'n that"

She took a deep breath, knowing that things couldn't ever go back to normal between them until she'd told him, keeping it a secret was making her twitchy and uncomfortable, unable to relax, although there was a chance that telling him would mean that things would never be the same between them again, he was bound to think that she'd lied to him.

"Charles, there's something I've gotta tell you. You know I've always said that I was gonna like …." She paused trying to find the right way to say what she wanted to say, she wished now that she'd rehearsed it because once the words were out there she couldn't take them back "I'm sorry, it's not that I ….. I mean I never lied to you about it or nothing, but when I was up there in Yorkshire and you weren't anymore, when you was down here, well …." She shrugged "But it's all different now we're both down here innit? And when I was talking to Jacks about being in Sierra Leone 'n that and I listened to some of the other girls who was out in Afghan like you, I realised that it wasn't never going to be me that did anything or went anywhere like that and I'm ….. sorta sorry about that"

"What are you trying to say, that you want to stay in?"

"Nah, that's not it, well not exactly, but when I was speaking to Ian the other day and he asked me what me plans were I sort of realised that I'm not sure what I want, I mean I know I wanna be with you, that I don't want us to be separate again, but I don't know about anything else, not for sure, not anymore"

"What, you talked to Ian about it before you said anything to me?"

"No course not, I never said nothing to him just didn't say, it's none of his bleeding business is it?"

"No-one can decide for you, Molly, you know that, and I always knew that there was a chance you'd change your mind when it came to it, that you'd want to stay in" He smiled, trying to look as reassuring as he could and not to show her how taken aback he was by what she'd just said "You're good at what you do … and you love it, so why would you want to give all that up and do, well, what exactly?"

One of his worst nightmares had been that she'd be deployed somewhere dangerous before her four years was up, or that when her time was up she would change her mind and want to stay in, because the longer she stayed in the higher the odds that she would be deployed. Much as he would love to try he certainly wasn't going to do or say anything to influence her decision one way or the other, he'd just have to keep his fingers crossed and put his trust in Lady Luck… .

"Don't look so worried, you don't need to decide just yet but it'll be fine, whatever you decide will be fine and even if you put in your papers you'll be reserved for at least a year so you can be deployed for quite a while yet whatever you do"

"Really? And you'd be okay with me maybe changing me mind? If I do? You sure?"

"Molly I just want you to be happy, and maybe you need to do this because you're only part way through a journey and maybe you need to prove to yourself that what Kinders said was bollocks, which it was by the way, total bollocks, you need to do whatever it is that makes you happy"

"I love you"

"I know you do, I love you too"

-OG-

The dinner party was her idea.

Celebrating their six month anniversary with a party was all her idea although Charles pointed out that it might not be warm enough in early May to spend a lot of the evening outside despite the patio heater that he rushed out and invested in. Molly accused him of buying it because he enjoyed setting fire to things when she saw the initial inferno he created before he adjusted it to work as it should, in other words before he did what she suggested and read the instruction leaflet.

They'd decided on food from Waitrose, ready-cooked chilled stuff even though Molly had pretended to sulk saying that her feelings were hurt because she had been intending to use her new found cookery skills, but even though he'd grinned and said 'lovely, good idea' he'd quickly pointed out that if she cooked something spicy they'd probably need enough booze to sink a small battleship, especially as Jock and Lydia were on the guest list and as far as he knew didn't drink water. So she'd dragged him round Waitrose as a punishment, putting his more bizarre choices back in the chiller cabinet and giggling at his idea of what food went with what even though she was pretty sure that he was just winding her up. They had a separate trolley for the alcohol so that they'd both smirked at the carefully controlled expression on the face of the check-out lady as she'd rung up the totals, they'd spent more than four times the amount on booze than they had on the food so that the woman said very politely that she hoped they would have a nice party to which Molly replied "Nah, just a couple of friends coming round for supper" so that they'd both had a childish attack of the giggles as soon as they got outside.

Everything was almost ready when he pointed out that he'd been right when he'd said that it wouldn't be warm enough outside so that Molly had patted his arm, smiled sweetly and then laughed as she lied and said that she was sure that with his heater going full blast it would have been fine, except that it was pissing it down. He'd looked out of the back door at the rain bouncing off the top of his heater and laughed ruefully telling her that she wasn't funny and could she please shut the fuck up. She'd flounced out of the kitchen pretending to be offended, saying that he'd obviously forgotten who he was talking to and did she really look like one of the lads?

His attempts to show her that she didn't look anything like any lad that he'd ever come across meant that they were barely decent when the first guests rang the doorbell, so that Molly was heartily relieved to see that it was Laura and Steve because she was flushed, dishevelled and giggly and Charles wasn't much better. It wouldn't have taken a genius to work out what they'd just interrupted.

"I'd offer to go for a bleeding walk round the block if it wasn't for this" Laura stroked her hand over her bump and tried her best to look pathetic "Sorry mate I didn't know we were early and I didn't mean to interrupt or anything but I can't hang about for much longer, I need a pee"

"Go on then, and you're not early and you're not interrupting nothing either and don't you bleeding start saying stuff like that to the others when they get here, cos it's not funny, okay?"

"What, you don't want me to tell everyone that the host and hostess was having a quickie when we got here?"

"Don't you bloody dare"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: I don't usually update on weekends, but have been on my sick bed for a few days (cue violins) and this was almost finished, coupled with the fact that someone has turned the sunshine off so that it's horrible here, cold, wet and windy. Thank you so much for your reviews and feedback on Chapter 20, I hope you enjoy this.**_


	22. Chapter 22

"You know, I think I like you better when you're pissed"

"You know something, I like me better when I'm pissed as well" Laura heaved a big sigh "It's not my fault that I'm not allowed to drink, is it? Blame this little bugger in here"

"Laura, put a bleeding sock in it will you? Just stop all the smartass shit, cos I don't think it's funny, okay? Do you see me laughing?"

She could see that Laura wasn't taking what she'd said seriously at all, she simply hadn't stopped sniggering and making veiled comments which she thought were hilarious and which Molly did not, so that she'd eventually pulled her friend into the kitchen, ostensibly to pick out a herbal tea but in reality to give her an ear bashing about the way she was trying to embarrass her, them, and bloody well succeeding.

"Gawd, when did you get so bleeding touchy? Did that happen when you got yourself Major Posh?"

"Stop it Laura, I never 'got' him as you call it and he's got nothing to do with it, I just don't like it 'n I'll tell you what, if you don't shut it I'll tell them all about when you was pregnant with Gabe and peed yourself"

"You wouldn't, you bloody promised me, and it was your fault anyway, you were the one that made me laugh like that, wouldn't have happened otherwise"

"Don't care; just shut your gob and then I'll keep schtum"

"Oooohhhoooohh …" Laura shrugged "Yeah okay you're right I'm only jealous, I don't remember having a six month anniversary" She pulled an 'I'm so hard done by' face "I've forgotten what it's like to be all loved up like the two of you"

"Yeah I can see that" Molly nodded her head indicating Laura's baby bump and grinned "You've obviously got a bleeding short memory" She raised her eyebrows, not for a single moment did she believe all the crap that Laura came out with about how it had all just happened without her being involved in the decision in any way. She'd been exactly the same when she was expecting Gabe, she'd complained the whole time about just about everything to do with being pregnant, had moaned continually that it was all some mistake which would never have happened if she'd had her wits about her, and yet here she was doing it all over again so that Molly wondered for a minute just what Steve thought about the things that she said, but then Steve knew her better than anyone else, and he loved her, that much was plain as the nose on your face.

"Yeah, well I've forgotten what it's like to be all slim and lovely like you and Jacks and to wear stuff like that, shit, I'm so jealous" Laura gestured at Molly's flat stomach in her tight black jeans and the black vest top which clung to her toned curves and then at her own stomach "Jacks seems to be getting on well with that bloke, doesn't she?" Laura had stopped looking at her, she was far too busy dunking a tea bag in and out of her cup, then sniffing suspiciously at the pale straw coloured liquid "Christ what are you trying to do to me here? This stuff smells like cats' pee"

"No it doesn't, well, yeah alright maybe it does, a bit, but it's good for you and it tastes better than it smells, sort of" Molly rushed on not wanting to discuss the healthy properties and merits of a cup of camomile tea which she personally hated. It was nearly a year since she'd bought the stuff to try it out and had left it here when she'd gone back to Catterick, so she was aware that it might just possibly be a tiny bit stale as well as being disgusting "Jacks has had her eye on Finn for ages, it's just that they've never got together before, and don't you bleeding start sayin' stuff 'n shit-stirring" Molly shook her head at her friend, pondering how much to share with her and then shrugged "I work with him, we both do, me and Jackie, and he's a really, really nice bloke, you know, just a bit shy, and she's liked him for bloody ages so I might have interfered a little bit, asked him if he wanted to come tonight but you keep that trap of yours shut, do you hear?"

"Okay keep your knickers on" Laura grinned then giggled "Tell me something, Molls, why is stuff that's good for you always so bloody revolting?"

Molly opened the kitchen door and stood back to let Laura go first carrying her cup of hemlock, or camomile tea, looking at it as though it would bite her, still sniffing the cup dubiously and pulling a face as they went into the stuffy heat of the lounge. The noise level in the room had been rising steadily ever since they'd moved in there after dinner, increasing in direct relation to the number of empties that were now lining the kitchen window sill. Everyone in the room seemed to be talking and laughing at the same time and at full volume, and Charles had been right once again when he'd said that ten people in a room the size of their lounge was going to be somewhat cosy to say the least, but Molly was loving it, well, she would be if she'd managed to shut Laura's gob for her. It reminded her of when her family and friends got together back in east Ham, well, early on in the evenings before her dad got pissed and started to lay down the law, because then he'd look for a fight with someone and spoil everything, but the general noise level and the bursts of laughter were very reminiscent of those evenings before she'd married Ian and stopped going home the way she had.

She stood in the doorway and looked around for a few minutes as Charles had his usual attack of sixth sense and looked up to wink at her before resuming his conversation with Steve, Jock and Martin, obviously a deeply blokey conversation which seemed to involve a hell of a lot of throwing back of heads coupled with very loud laughter and an inordinate amount of gesturing and arm waving. Lydia and Gloria were huddled with their heads close together in some deep discussion about something that Molly could only hope and pray wasn't Laura although it would serve her bloody right if it was and Jackie was almost sharing the same air as Finn. He'd obviously forgotten to be shy and tongue tied and was talking nineteen to the dozen, a bonus of there being a lot of free-flowing alcohol and very little space in the room so that everyone was almost sitting on top of everyone else.

She intended to do exactly the same thing as Jackie just as soon as she could shuffle and weave her way past all the outstretched legs and knees and perch herself on the lap of someone who was by far the best looking bloke in the room. The bloke in the blue shirt who'd jerked his head at her indicating for her to join him at the same time as giving her the sort of smile that still made her stomach somersault the way it had right from that very first day when she'd stood to attention on the parade ground at Catterick and had recognised him.

It hadn't taken her long to decide that she was in love with him back then, feelings that had grown and multiplied throughout that first few months when he'd been her CO, in spite of the fact that he'd spent a lot of his time yelling at her. Feelings that had exploded after that Christmas party and the long walk home in the snow and had just kept on getting stronger and stronger, but those feelings had got nothing on the way she felt about him now, now she was sure she knew exactly what loving someone actually felt like …..

-OG

"Thought they'd never go, I began to wonder if they were waiting for a bed for the night"

"Bloody hell, hope you're joking" Molly pulled a face.

It was way past two o'clock when the die-hards had finally taken their leave, Jock and Lydia had stayed a good two hours longer than Laura and Steve who'd had to go reasonably early because of the babysitter, with Laura muttering darkly about making up for lost time as soon as she possibly could. The others had left not long afterwards, with the exception of Jock and his wife who seemed to be impervious to their host and hostesses need to go to bed on the right side of the dawn chorus. Charles now shut the front door with a deep sigh of relief and leaned back against it, looking at the wreckage of their lounge, at the squashed sofa cushions, some of them on the floor where people had been sitting, at the empty glasses, at the glasses that still had dregs of wine left in them, empty coffee cups and empty bottles which were littered around the room covering the coffee table and the mantelpiece and some abandoned on the floor next to chairs. He laughed as Molly bent down to pick up a glass and stumbled, losing her balance and almost toppling over head first.

"Oops, nearly" She put out her hand and steadied herself on the arm of the sofa then used it to hold onto to stand up "I think I might have accidentally drunk a couple of drinks tonight"

"Don't you just _hate_ it when that happens?" He laughed as he moved to stand in front of her and then linked his arms behind her waist, still laughing "When the bloody stuff just, I don't know, ups and pours itself down your throat like that and you don't even notice"

"I know, it's a bugger isn't it? Did you have a good time?" Molly smiled up at him and linked her arms behind his waist "Enjoy it did you?"

"Yup, I had a really good time, thanks" He paused, smirked and nodded his head "And I enjoyed it as well" He couldn't help the gurgle of laughter that bubbled up as he grinned at the face being pulled at him "Did you? Well once you'd shut that mate of yours up anyway, God she can be a fucking nightmare, can't she?"

"She means well and yeah I had a good time" She bit her lip as she looked at him "Less of the bloody sarky you, you knew what I meant"

"If you say so, it's Steve I feel sorry for" He shuddered slightly and lifted one eyebrow ignoring her comment about his sarcasm then smirking at her again as she moved her hands slowly down his back and lightly stroked his bum ending up by cupping it and pulling him closer to her "Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs James?"

"I dunno, am I?"

"Oh yes, I think you're definitely trying to seduce me" He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose.

"Is it working? Cos I thought I might give you your anniversary present now that all them other buggers have pissed off home"

"Yup, it's working, it's definitely working, it's very successful" He closed his eyes and leaned his head back enjoying every bit of the sensation she was creating "Can I have the same present next anniversary?" He opened one eye and peeped at her before closing it again "And all the others after that"

"I dunno, only if you're good"

"Oh, I'll be good, I promise I'll be very, very good"

-OG-

Half an hour later and Charles was stroking her messy hair back from her forehead and laughing as he suggested that they might want to think about buying a new and very much thicker rug or even getting a carpet if they were going to make a habit of ending their evenings the same way because it wasn't the most comfortable place in the world. Molly laughed and raised her eyebrows, then looked around at the debris from the party and raised her eyebrows again, asking what they were doing down there with the empties when they had a perfectly good bed upstairs.

"I don't know, you're the one who seduced me so it was definitely your idea, it was my anniversary present, remember?"

"Oh yeah, forgot that" She put her hand up and stroked his face "Did you enjoy it?"

"Nope, hated every minute"

"Yeah, me too"

They had ended up with him lying on the thin rug as she straddled him, with her hair falling on both sides of her face like curtains as she'd closed her eyes and begun to grind against him making him grasp her hips lightly. She'd opened her eyes, eyes which were huge and green and totally unfocussed and started muttering over and over that he wasn't to stop, that he mustn't dare stop …. and he didn't …. and then he couldn't as he tightened his grip on her hips and pulled her onto him as tightly as he could, his world disintegrating into the intense waves of pleasure that made everything else disappear.

-OG-

It was very late the next morning when Molly dragged her eyes open, then moved her head slowly from side to side to test her hangover status, which was thankfully not too horrendous as she put out her hand to check the space next to her in the bed. She didn't actually hold out much hope that he would still be there next to her, in all the time she'd been sleeping with him she couldn't actually remember a time when he'd slept later than her and that was even when he'd had a bad night, or like the previous night practically no night at all, he was still wide awake and fully functioning, in one way or another, at the crack of dawn or at stupid o'clock as Molly called it. Her army training meant that she could also wake up and be instantly alert and ready to get going, but she didn't do it unless she had to, she could sleep in for England when the opportunity presented itself, like today.

He had obviously been awake and out of bed for some time, there was a stone cold cup of tea sitting on the bedside table, so she yawned and stretched like a cat, then tried to focus on the bedside clock to see what time it was but a shaft of sunlight was catching it making it difficult to see, so she gave up, her hangover was obviously a lot worse than her original assessment. It was late, that much was pretty evident from the sounds of the children playing outside in the sunshine, so she considered getting up for a pee and opening the curtains, letting more of the sunshine in, then thought about it and decided that a visit to the loo could definitely wait whereas yelling down and begging and pleading for another cuppa definitely couldn't, she was parched with a mouth and nose that felt as though they'd been sandpapered.

Apart from the floor needing a vacuum there were no signs left of the party when she finally made it downstairs wearing, as usual, one of his over-sized 'T' shirts and nothing else. She had yelled herself hoarse without any result so that she'd eventually come to the conclusion that he'd gone out to the shops or maybe to the bottle bank to ditch the empties or something.

She'd wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on when she caught sight of him pacing backwards and forwards out in the garden. The sun was shining, it was warm and dry so that Molly shrugged with frustration at the difference in the weather and wondered why the fuck it couldn't of been like that the day before, as she watched Charles through the window. He was talking, or rather he was listening, to someone who was obviously bending his ear about something on the phone and whoever it was and whatever they were saying it wasn't going down well judging from the expression on his face. He kept opening his mouth as if he was about to say something and then not quite managing it before shaking his head and pulling one of his 'don't piss me about if you know what's good for you' faces.

He caught sight of her the instant she moved into the doorway, smiled and held the phone away from his ear, rolling his eyes as he did it, so that she knew that he was talking to bloody Meg. Molly hadn't seen Meg since their Mother's Day visit to Bath, she didn't come up to Ash to visit and didn't phone the house, only called Charles on his mobile and he dropped in to see his parents for short visits when he went to see or collect Sam. Although they had this sort of tacit agreement that hell would freeze over before Molly played dutiful daughter-in-law again, he still kept on hoping to change her mind.

"I've got to go, sorry Mum, I have to talk to Molly about something and she's here now, I'll call you later"

He put his arm out to pull her close then kissed her on the temple as he disconnected the call, held her at arm's length, looked her up and down and laughed at the way she was dressed.

"You okay?"

"Talking to my mother is like trying to discuss religion with a Scientologist, fucking impossible"

He shook his head and tutted, pasting his 'puppy dog' expression on his face, brown eyes beseeching her "Molly?"

"I'll need to think about it" She paused for effect "Okay I've thought …. _NAH_ "

"How did you know what I was going to say?" He kissed the top of her head, slung his arm round her shoulders and raised his eyebrows hopefully "I'll let you drive, I promise I won't moan about your driving"

"Answer's still _nah"_

"You're a hard woman" He grinned at her and started laughing as she turned and went back into the kitchen swaying her hips from side to side as she went, smirking at him over her shoulder.

"I know, hard as nails, me"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thank you very much for your reviews and feedback, it gives me so much motivation to keep going. I do hope that you enjoyed this chapter and I'd be really grateful if you could R &R for me. Chapter 23 is a work in progress, so hopefully in a couple of days,**_


	23. Chapter 23

Her day had barely started when Corporal Smith told her to report to the Captain straight after lunch which meant that she spent all morning running through her potential sins in her head, trying to think if she'd done anything recently that would merit a bollocking from the CO and coming up with a big fat nothing, unless she had a bad attack of holiday amnesia. They'd just got back from a week in France that hadn't been quite as warm and sunny as they'd expected, the Camargue had been cool, cloudy and wet the whole time so that locals kept getting on her nerves by shaking their heads and harping on that it was very unusual for the time of year, well according to Charles because he could understand what they were saying, or he said he could. She thought that they might as well have been talking Martian and whether it was unusual or not it was still pissing down so that it made no odds what they were sayin', there was still nothing much else to do but stop in bed, which, nice as it was, was something they could have done at home without it costing them an arm and a leg; a bollocking first day back at work was definitely not on her wish list….

Mandy Barnes smiled as she looked at Molly and told her to stand easy, something that flooded her with relief, she knew the boss well enough now to know that if she had been about to deliver a bollocking there was no way she would have smiled like that or stood her at ease. Mandy considered the girl standing in front of her for a moment as she admitted to herself with a wry smile just how wrong she'd been about Private James. She'd initially thought that the girl was a pretty little slip of a thing who obviously appealed to men but that she was probably an airhead who'd managed to snare not one but two officers, both of them a lot older than her so that the phrase kept popping up about there being no fool like an old fool. Not that they were _that_ old, either of them, or fools either, she didn't know much about Ian Paget but Charles James definitely wasn't stupid. Both of them were very good looking, and alright the first one was an NCO, but even so, two, getting there twice was pretty good going in anyone's book. But she'd been totally wrong about the girl, Molly James wasn't anything like she'd expected, yes, she was very young to be a Major's wife, but she was efficient, she was capable, and was popular which was a surprise, and not only was she reliable but she'd never once thrown her weight around or used her status as a Major's wife to be difficult. No-one had needed to put in her place and nor had she, contrary to gossip which had filtered through to the Corporal from her opposite number in Yorkshire, tried to stir up any trouble for anyone.

Mandy thought that Molly looked nervous standing there, as if she expected something that she wasn't going to like very much, as though a summons to see a superior was always a prelude to trouble, but literally the Captain was just keen to ask whether she planned to stay in or not, had just wanted to see her so she could spell out and discuss options, although she realised that Charles James had probably already done it, but as her CO she wanted to be the one who told Molly that they were keen for her to stay.

The rest of the afternoon seemed very long to Molly, almost endless, so that Corporal Smith had bollocked her several times, ticking her off in that polite, well-spoken way of hers as she said to stop day-dreaming and that if she was on another planet they'd all be grateful if she'd kindly return to earth sometime soon, bollockings that Molly knew were totally justified. She couldn't concentrate properly because she couldn't stop running over what Captain Barnes had said to her which meant she couldn't wipe the stupid grin off her face.

Molly enjoyed reporting to Gill Smith, although the Corporal wasn't overflowing with friendly banter or nothing, she could be distant and very picky, but she wasn't unfriendly and Molly didn't have to start every day with that sinking feeling of dread that she'd learned to live with when she'd reported to Kinders. Molly kept on making resolutions to try and be more like her, the Corporal never swore at anyone, well, never swore, never lost her temper or appeared looking anything other than completely immaculate. She wondered what Charles would make of her trying to copy the Corporal's speech and her manners and maybe even her fantastically well-groomed appearance, you could always see your face in her boots, but somehow she couldn't quite visualise it, although bloody Meg would be delirious.

-OG-

His first day back from leave and a 'bomb' had exploded under him. Their leave had been fun, okay the weather had been dire so that they'd spent a lot of their time driving around sightseeing the vast open spaces of the Camargue and the pretty villages in steady grey sheets of rain and even more time making their own entertainment in one of the most comfortable beds he'd ever been in, so much so that he was thinking of buying a feather topper for their mattress.

Being told that he was being posted back to 4th Infantry, which included the under-fives, had come as a sort of mixed blessing, initially he'd had this huge jolt of pleasure at the thought of going back to Catterick, at re-joining a bunch of lads he was fond of, at being stationed where he'd been very happy, and going back there as Major in overall command was a responsibility he couldn't wait to get his teeth into. But, and it was a huge but, he was going to have to do his utmost to keep his own joy locked away because this was going to be a huge hammer blow to Molly. She was happy the way things were, which to be fair he was as well, but she was happy being stationed at 2 Field, she was happy with them living out together and sharing day to day off-duty lives the way they were, even if she still hadn't quite managed to make up her mind whether she was going to stay in. Charles was pretty sure that underneath she had made her decision; it was just that she hadn't acknowledged it out loud yet. What was about to happen in his career was going to well and truly fuck up that happiness because everything was going to be turned on its head again. If Molly stayed at 2 Field they would be living bloody awful separate lives again exactly as they had when they were first married and neither of them wanted that for a second, but it was very unlikely that she would be able to get an immediate transfer. Her options were totally limited because she couldn't be in his direct command and she wouldn't want to be back anywhere near Derek Kinders anyway, and the other regiments based at Catterick were fairly niche so she would have to wait for a suitable vacancy for a medic, something that could well take months if not years.

His news came as a total bombshell to her as well putting everything else out of her head, there had been no hint of anything like this waiting in the wings before they'd gone away, so that she wondered for a minute if he'd known it was on the cards but kept it secret, although she had to accept that he wouldn't do that and one good look at his face told her that that wasn't what had happened.

"Oh no, no, no, no this is so bloody unfair, they can't do this to us can they? Yeah, course they bloody can, but Charles, I've only just got here and now they want you to go?" Molly knew she sounded as though she was wailing, but that was because she was, this all felt so incredibly unfair and just when everything was getting nicely sorted "Shit Charles, where they sending you? Tell me it's not somewhere dangerous, it's not bleeding Iraq again is it? Not like before?"

"No, it's not Iraq and I suppose it depends what you call dangerous" He was doing his best to swallow the laugh that was bubbling up and desperately trying to escape as he crossed his arms and tucked his hands under them while biting his bottom lip and rocking back on his heels, trying to control the urge, he knew that there wasn't anything even remotely funny about what he was telling her but there was about the way she was reacting, almost as if she thought it was the army being personal "Some people call it bandit country"

She didn't tell him about her discussions with Captain Barnes, now it was her turn to be keeping secrets but it didn't seem to matter that much anymore, she had absolutely no bloody clue what she was going to do next. Telling people about his posting would have made it all seem far too real, she told no-one, not even Belinda, because people would ask questions about what she was going to do and she didn't bloody know. As the time for him to go got nearer and nearer she got more and more reluctant to even think about it because underneath there was this bit of her that was waiting for the miracle that would stop it all happening.

That day he'd come home and told her about the posting she'd decided that things couldn't possibly get any worse, but she hadn't bargained on it all happening quite so soon. The day he got the date confirmed was the day she realised that fate or chance or Lady Luck or some other bugger had stepped in just to remind her that when things start going tits up in your life, there isn't anything or anyone out there that can stop them going to shit big time, and she should know that if anyone did.

She stood at their front door and watched him putting the last of his bags in the car, smiling broadly whenever she caught his eye, pretending, as they both were, to be stoical about the up-coming separation, that she was cool about army life.

"No bloody grand prix on the way, okay?"

"Of course not, anyway that's you that drives like a bloody lunatic not me" He put his hand out and tilted her chin up so that she had to look him in the eyes "Will you be alright?"

"Nah, but I'll cope" Trying to stay dry-eyed and upbeat despite the prickling on the backs of her eyes and the top of her nose was very hard "Give me love to them all when you see them, well, after you stop bossing them about and making them run round the parade ground yelling that they need to put more bloody effort in"

"Do you really mean that, that you want me to give your love to all of them, even Kinders?"

"Nah, not him, everyone 'cept him, okay?" In one way she didn't ever want to let him go, she wanted him to just come back in the house and for her to keep him there forever, but in another way she wished he would just leave so that she could go back in on her own and get on with feeling sorry for herself "Call me when you get there, don't forget"

"Of course I won't forget and I'll see you weekend after next, be careful Molls, I love you" He bent to kiss her, then put his arms round her and hugged her as hard as he could.

"Yeah I will, I love you too" She stood on tip toes and kissed his cheek "Now piss off before I make a complete tit of myself"

-OG-

"What, so he's gone back to … up there …. " Laura waved her arm in the air pointing to where she imagined North would be "And you're going to stop here in that house on your own? So what's gone wrong then? I thought the two of you were bloody rock solid"

"It's not like that, we are solid, it's just he's got posted and it can happen to any of them, you know that, just like you know as well as I do that they have to go where the fucking army sends them, or leave, be a civvie, and they've sent him back up there"

"What about you?"

Laura was now three weeks off her due date for little bugger number two putting in an appearance and she was completely and utterly fed up with not being able to see her feet or bend over to pick anything up so that she kept on moaning and groaning and rubbing her back until Molly got fed up and told her that if she didn't bloody pack it in she'd take her to the hospital and leave her there.

"I dunno, what the fuck would I do up there Laura? I can't go back to being a medic there cos I'm not allowed to report to him, so I dunno, I really don't know" She grimaced "And don't you bleeding start suggesting I get pregnant to give me some'ing to do, you're enough to put anyone off"

"I thought you were leaving the army anyhow?"

"Well I was, but then I changed me mind, sort of, I decided I wanted to do stuff like Jacks has done"

"So, looks like you can't do both, doesn't it? You've just got to decide what's more important"

Laura knew she sounded a bit harsh and unsympathetic as she took a deep breath and looked at Molly with the most serious expression that she could conjure up. They'd been friends for a very long time and although Laura knew she sometimes pissed Molly off, and to be honest Molly sometimes pissed her off as well, she cared about her friend and thought that she was about to make a huge mistake.

"Look, I know you won't want to believe me, but Jacks has said as how there are a lot of people fancy him, and I know that he wouldn't, not in a million years, but that won't stop them trying it on will it? 'Specially if they see that he's up there on his own"

"What? Are you saying I can't trust him" Molly shook her head in disbelief "That I have to go where he is so I can keep tabs on him?"

"No, but I wouldn't trust some of these bloody women though, remember Jessie?"

"Charles is not Ian, he wouldn't do that to me _"_

"Sorry, just ignore me, blame my bloody hormones or it's probably cos I'm not getting any at all these days"

She'd immediately dismissed what Laura had said, it was the one thing she didn't have to worry about but she didn't want to talk to Laura about it anymore. He'd told her once that the night she'd fed him so much garlic he'd been still sweating it out a week later, he'd thought Ian was a complete prick, that he'd got everything, he was doing well at work, he'd got a future, a nice home and most of all he had her, and he'd thrown it all away for a knee trembler with some stupid cow, a clone of his own bloody nightmare of a wife. Charles had said that he'd wanted nothing more that night than to take Ian outside and beat some sense into him, and then to pick her up and take her home, tuck her into his bed and keep her there.

Molly took herself home shortly afterwards, their conversation had ground to a halt and she was raw and miserable and lonely so despite the fact that it was barely lunch time and she'd only been up for a couple of hours, she couldn't wait to go back to bed, to curl up and go to sleep, to escape for a few hours.

-OG-

Explaining herself to all the people who expressed surprise or disappointment began to get on her tits big time because as far as she was concerned it had fuck all to do with any of them, not Captain Barnes or Corporal Smith, not the other NCOs, Jackie, Finn or any of the others at 2 Field. Everyone seemed to have an opinion; mainly that she was doing the wrong thing, only Laura was firmly convinced that it was the right decision. The first two weeks of their enforced separation had told her everything she needed to know, had shown her that the decision she'd made way back before they'd got married was the right decision, and anyhow there were no guarantees at all that even if she stayed in for the next ten, or even twenty years that she would ever get to go off and do something in some war zone somewhere or that she would be sent to deal with an epidemic of some sort. She could, and most likely would, spend all her service at Aldershot , there were lots of people who did just that, which would mean that she would only ever see him on random weekends when their time off coincided, or when they both got leave, and that wasn't enough, it wasn't nearly enough.

"Are you absolutely sure that this is what you want to do?"

She could tell from the tone of his voice on the phone that this was exactly what he wanted her to do, but that once again he was masking it, doing his best not to influence her decision one way or the other.

"Yeah course, someone's got to keep an eye on you, haven't they? Stop you working all them poor buggers to death" She laughed a bit nervously, a thought had just occurred to her "Charles, just tell me, is this what you want me to do, cos you're so busy trying not to … well you know, but I need to hear whether it's what you want as well as me"

"You know something Dawsey, you do ask some bloody stupid questions sometimes"

-OG-

 _ **A/N: Thanks for your feedback, this is the penultimate chapter which I do hope you enjoyed, as I don't want to bore everyone to death. Chapter 24 will see them back where they really started as a couple, notwithstanding Indian restaurants, nightclubs and dinner parties, with Kinders, 2 Section and all and will be up and running as soon as I finish writing it!**_


	24. Chapter 24

_**Finale**_

She was full of mixed feelings as the removal men closed the doors of the van and it pulled away with their lives on board, sadness, they'd been happy there, relief that the day had finally arrived, a bit of excitement, and more than a bit of anxiety. Charles was standing on the pathway issuing last minute orders about driving carefully, he'd already programmed her sat-nav, for all the world as though she wasn't capable, and now kept reminding her about making sure the house was locked up properly when she left, about watching the petrol gauge because he wasn't sure about it, about watching her speed and driving carefully …..again …. so that she ended up laughing and telling him that she was only waiting for him to piss off before she let the squatters in and then she was going to break the world record for the fastest ever drive up the M1. He'd shot her one of his CO glares and muttered something about not putting anything past her, nodded, kissed her and got in his car, then got out to kiss her again, properly the second time, saying that he was sorry then giving her one of his heart melting smiles before finally driving off after the removal van.

Saying goodbye to their friends had been far more difficult than Molly had anticipated, she hadn't realised what close ties she'd established locally and at work, so the final three weeks had passed in a haze of packing up, doing most of it on her own because Charles was in Yorkshire, then tearful farewells carried on a tide of alcohol. She'd taken leave of a sobbing Laura the night before, a Laura who said it was only because she was obviously never going to give birth, was going to be fat forever and was only bawling because she'd been planning on them going out and getting pissed together once the alcohol police had fucked off and left her alone. Molly had giggled and hugged her saying they could still do that, that they'd see each other again soon, but in the meantime her liver was saying a big fat thanks for small mercies.

Driving up to Yorkshire proved a complete nightmare, not only was it a long, long drive, further than she'd ever driven before, but the few times she'd driven on motorways had been in Charles' tank of a car so hers felt very titchy next to the bloody great lorries that were thundering by, on top of that she felt sick with trepidation the whole bloody way. The realisation that this was actually happening, right here, right now, and it was only a few short months since she'd walked out of Catterick high-fiving herself and saying yah, never again, and yet here she was on her way back, definitely a numptie.

Her future was still up in the air, she'd got this idea and when she'd run it past Charles he'd been all full of encouragement, thought it was 100% the right thing and that she should go for it because she'd be brilliant and that he was really, really proud of her, which meant she was left with no bloody choice but to go ahead with it, even though the thought scared the shit out of her. Her memory of sitting behind a desk was that it did her head in so that she'd never wanted to go there again, but everything else she'd looked at doing, apart from the army, needed some sort of qualifications, GCSE's or something at least, so that's what she was going to do. She was going to enrol in College, as long as she could find one that would have her, and then she was at least going to try and do Maths and English.

Finding the right red-brick box in a quiet cul-de-sac of identical boxes, albeit nice big boxes with nicely kept front gardens, wasn't hard, the van was still there with men bustling in and out of the place, and the bloke pacing up and down the pavement outside looking incredibly anxious and nursing a mug of coffee was a dead give-away. The smile on his face when he rushed round and opened her door told her just how worried he'd been about her driving up the M1, so that she felt really bad about the way she'd taken the piss before he'd left. She was stiff as a board, totally knackered and could barely move but that didn't stop her flinging her arms round him and giving him the longest, hardest and most relieved hug she could manage, bearing in mind that she was desperate for a pee.

Settling into life in a big, posh married quarters box with a nice garden, proved to be a lot easier than she'd feared. It was well away from the main barracks so there wasn't any chance of running into Kinders, unfortunately that also meant that she wouldn't run into any of her mates from 2 Section either. Going to college proved to be a whole different ball-bag to anything she'd ever imagined. Suddenly, she wasn't useless Molly, the class clown, a bit of a joke, but was a proper student with loads of new friends, not all of them kids either, and loads of opportunities to show everyone that she wasn't thick, that she was nowhere near as bloody stupid as everyone used to tell her she was when she was at school, and she loved every single minute of it. It was the whole new outlook on life that she loved, almost as much as she loved the way that Charles was so proud of her.

Almost a year on and the results of her five GCSEs were exactly what she'd expected them to be, what her tutors had predicted for her. She knew she'd done well even though like all the others she'd gone round saying that she was going to fail, but she would have been totally gutted if she hadn't done well enough to move on to study for 'A' levels. She'd got all these plans that once she'd got _them_ out the way University came next, so that Molly James, or Molly Dawes, the 'fucking useless little tart', was going to get a degree in … well, something, she hadn't quite decided what yet, but it would show a certain arsehole of a Corporal just how wrong he'd been …. .

 _ **December, sixteen months later**_

Despite the fact that it was the early hours of the morning and her brain was screaming 'middle of the night …. bed … sleep' she'd got up and padded over to the window and pulled open the curtain. The room was filled with the strange light that you get when it's snowing and she stood for ages looking out at the funny coloured sky and at the fast and furious blizzard of cotton wool snowflakes that were burying the whole world in a thick blanket of white.

This was her fourth Yorkshire winter and her childlike love of snow was as strong now as it had been that very first night when they'd got together, she absolutely loved it. It always seemed to her that there was something magic about the world when it snowed and this year there was the added bonus that if it kept on snowing the way it was it would almost certainly mean the roads would be bad, and as far as Molly was concerned, the worse the roads got the better it was. The thought of the words 'road closed, road blocked, impassable' brought a happy smile to her face as she added a quick 'prayer' to Charles' Lady Luck, and just for added good measure crossed her fingers tightly.

She was shivering in his 'T' shirt, in her opinion the heating in the cottage was an absolute bugger so that it was chilly most of the time, the only rooms that ever got warm enough were the lounge, and then only when the flames in the wood burner were roaring up the chimney, or the kitchen when the AGA was going full pelt. They'd been in the cottage for nearly four months after spending almost a year in married quarters and although the cottage was lovely, stone built and pretty, it was out in the countryside which meant that there were far too many trees for her liking, and they still hadn't managed to sort the central heating to her satisfaction. Charles said it was fine and he couldn't see a problem, so she'd christened him the heating Nazi and went around turning everything up as soon as his back was turned so that when he came in he'd pretend he was dying from the heat and would keep wafting his top away from his body saying 'phew' before laughing and suggesting that they open a window or two.

Getting back into bed she nestled against his warm bulk, putting her cold feet on him then enjoying the sleepy way he turned over to gather her into his arms.

"Everything okay?" His voice was soft with sleep as he cuddled her, pulling her close "God your feet are bloody frozen, woman, what the fuck have you been doing?"

"Told you it's too cold in 'ere, didn't I? I was watching the snow for a bit cos it's bucketing down out there so probably means the roads will be shit" She giggled "Well, with a bit of bloody luck they will, I reckon they could even be shut by the morning"

"This is Yorkshire, they're used to a bit of snow up here" He snorted a laugh at the optimistic tone in her voice "So should you be by now and anyway if it's that bad they'll have the snowploughs out as soon as it's light"

"Oh bugger …. Still, no harm in hoping is there?"

"No, probably not going to happen though"

"Shit"

-OG-

Crossing her fingers that they'd be snowed in was the upshot of a conversation they'd had after an exceptionally good dinner and a hell of a lot of local wine while they were on holiday in France. It had all been just about perfect, the sun had shone every day and it was hot for September meaning that Charles turned dark brown and even Molly's legs got a bit of a tan without the help of chemicals. On the night in question it was still so warm that they'd been lying in bed on top of the covers with a good couple of feet between them because it was too hot to snuggle, listening to the noise of the cicadas when a blissfully happy and more than slightly pissed Molly had given him a sloppy kiss and a promise that she would try again with his mother.

"You know you don't have to, don't you? I'm really not sure that she deserves it"

"I know, bloody hero that's me" She'd grinned and leaned over to give him another sloppy drunken kiss on the cheek "I know she's a bit … a bit …..well, you know, isn't she? but I reckon it won't kill me to give it another go, just for you … cos I love you"

"I know you do, I love you too, and it would be lovely, just as long as you don't kill her if she gets up to any of her bloody nonsense, I mean, got to be careful with a trained killer like you" He laughed at the expression on her face as she considered what he'd just said.

"No I'm not, not anymore, but I'll try" She thought for a second "No that's a bit wrong innit? Try not to, well, you know what I mean"

-OG

Eventually, after putting it off and putting it off, he'd rung and invited them to come up for a visit, suggesting that near Christmas would be best so that they could bring Sam with them, although even as he'd said it he wasn't terribly convinced it was the wisest move he'd ever made. In spite of Molly's promises he was still concerned she would find it next to impossible not to go off on one if Meg started up and he was afraid it was going to be very difficult for her to hold her tongue for that length of time ….….

"I've got nothing to wear, you'll have to go on your own"

Molly was pulling the contents of her wardrobe out one by one, holding things up against herself in the mirror before throwing them onto the heap on the floor.

"The lads won't mind what you wear; they'll just enjoy seeing you"

"Bloody typical, it's not for them, it's for me, I mind …. I wanna look how I used to look"

Charles knew better than to say anything else, even something about her looking gorgeous whatever she wore, he'd already said way too much. She hadn't gone with him the previous year, the date had clashed with some College do, but he'd thought she was looking forward to it this time, now she was having a major strop, but the problem wasn't really what to wear to the annual Under Five's Chinese, it was the imminent arrival of his parents.

"What's wrong with that? It's nice, you look lovely in it" He took his life in his hands and held up the green dress she'd just hurled onto the pile with an expression of disgust on her face.

"Makes me look like I should be touting for rough trade round Kings Cross … it's too tight, I've got fat ….. and stop bleeding laughing at me, what's funny?"

"Nothing …." He did his best to stop smiling "You're not fat you look just the same as you did when I first met you, you look gorgeous" He leaned across and kissed the tip of her nose, ignoring the sulky expression on her face and smirking as she chewed her lip and struggled not to smile back "And what do you know about working girls at Kings Cross? Look, you don't have to go tonight if you don't want to, you can stay at home and talk to my mother if you like" He grinned at the expression of pure horror on her face "You'll look beautiful whatever you wear, so go on, I'll sort this lot while you go and, I don't know, play with the heating or something"

-OG-

The bustle of greetings and bags being brought in, the discussions about the weather and the roads were over and done with, the offer of tea had been made and accepted, and then there they all were, everyone looking anywhere but at each other and tried to think of a topic of conversation that wouldn't be controversial so that there were these excruciatingly long painful silences. Only an oblivious Sam was happy as he played some game on his phone. Eventually Charles escaped ostensibly to make more tea, jerking his head for Molly to follow him so that she went into the kitchen to give him a hug and to wipe the worry lines off his face.

"Stop looking like that, I'm gonna be the Angel Gabriel, I _said,_ remember? _"_

"He was a bloke"

"Okay, Mother Theresa then, one of 'em anyhow, just stop worrying it's gonna be fine"

"I'm sorry Molly, I should have known this was a terrible idea"

"S'okay, It's not your fault your mum's an old witch with a face like a slapped arse, is it?"

"Nope"

Their gale of laughter brought Sam into the kitchen to see what was so funny, so that Charles had to do some very quick thinking to come up with an acceptable explanation, which even to his ears sounded lame and which left Sam shaking his head in bewilderment at the weirdness of adults and the things they found funny.

-OG-

"You look lovely"

Molly's first instinct was to look over her shoulder to see who Meg could possibly be talking to, both she and Charles were still vaguely giggly from the sheer horrendousness of the evening so far. He had cooked dinner for Sam and his parents while Molly got ready and although his mother had been appalled that Charles was doing the cooking, she hadn't _said_ anything, she'd just _looked_ , but the way she'd _looked_ spoke volumes.

"Thanks _"_

Molly was dubious as she looked down at the green dress she still thought made her look tarty and fat and wondered whether Meg was being sarcastic.

"You're a lucky girl, you know that don't you?"

"Am I?"

Molly's immediate reaction was to ask the old bitch what the fuck she was talking about, but she couldn't, if Meg said something about how she, Cinderella, should be grateful that he, Prince Charming, had married her then Cinderella would be forced to deck her and she'd made this bloody promise to him not to lay a finger on the old trout.

"When Charles' dad and I were young we had to try for years before we had him, we almost gave up, and we, well I really wanted a big family" Meg shook her head, a faraway expression on her face as she spoke "But it didn't matter how hard we tried it just didn't happen again" She shook her head again as Molly concentrated very hard on thinking of something _, anything_ , to say apart from 'sorry 'bout that' "Still, we did our best to make sure he was never lonely or wanted for anything, he always had the very best we could offer"

Molly had no clue why Meg was telling her this but wanted to giggle at the image in her head of Meg and his dad bonking away in that bloody big house in Bath desperately trying to get pregnant.

"Oh I'm so sorry, I thought …. the dress …." Meg had caught sight of the puzzled frown on Molly's face and gestured towards the empire line of her dress, flushing a deep, unbecoming shade of scarlet as she turned her back and started bustling around straightening the cushions, obviously deeply embarrassed.

Molly patted her arm and smiled, she and Meg were never going to be friends exactly, and she couldn't see her mother-in-law ever saying sorry for the way she'd been, but Molly could sort of see now why she was such a bleeding pain in the arse about him and she couldn't help feeling just a tiny little bit sort of sorry for her …...

-OG-

"Hello you massive cockwombles"

Charles laughed at how happy she sounded as they went into the Chinese, thinking that she certainly knew how to make an entrance and that thankfully she seemed to have forgotten all about her dress being, as she'd insisted, all bloody wrong.

"Well fuck me, look who's here, if it isn't our Molls, Mastermind as we call her these days"

"Here, Molls, you never told us you were clever"

"You never asked and anyhow didn't want to show you lot up, did I?"

She was giggling, happy to be back in their company after so long and was now looking forward to the evening bearing in mind that some of them were already fairly 'cheerful', when she caught sight of a very familiar figure standing on his own on the edge of the group looking at the floor. As she looked at him he looked up and nodded, poker faced, and she suddenly saw a very different person to the monster that had lived in her head for almost all of the last three years, someone who'd made her life a misery. He was diminished, he was just a little man who'd abused his power for his own reasons and she almost felt sorry for him, well, almost …. .

She couldn't wait to be on her own with Charles so that she could tell him how she obviously was Mother Theresa reborn, first Meg, even though it didn't look like the old bag was ever going to say sorry for all the crap she'd pulled … and now Kinders … , there was no doubt about it, she was definitely a bloody hero.

 _ **Epilogue**_

Molly laughed as she watched Caitlin patting handfuls of snow onto her father's legs trying to make it stick to his jeans, that familiar look of absolute determination on her little face when the snow fell straight off again. She was a rosy cheeked, curly haired little charmer with big brown eyes and a heart melting smile who looked like a mini Michelin man all bundled up in her pink snowsuit and wellies, and so much like Ollie when he was determined to achieve something. Meg had been quite right although how the hell she could have known Molly hadn't got a bloody scoobie. Had to be a lucky guess she reckoned because apart from her swollen tits making her dress feel tight and an inability to go anywhere near raw meat because it smelled of dead animals, which meant that Charles had to cook, she'd had no outward signs of being pregnant at all. She hadn't known for long herself that her screaming body clock had got the French holiday legacy that it had wanted from a husband who'd been only too happy to oblige ….

Oliver Charles was born on a hot late July evening almost exactly five years from the evening his parents had met at a terrible dinner party on one of the worst evenings of her life, which turned out to be the best. His shell-shocked mother had said she was never, ever having sex again, let alone having any more babies, something she'd repeated 16 months later when Caitlin was born 2 days before their 4th wedding anniversary.

-OG-

It had started to snow again, fat lazy flakes were drifting out of a pewter grey sky as Charles swept both children up, tucked one under each arm, and ignoring Ollie's howls of protest that he wasn't cold, carried them back into the warm where Molly was struggling to finish an essay. She gave up for the moment intending to finish it later as Caitlin clapped her fat little hands onto Charles' face, squashing his cheeks in as she pulled his head round to look at her and kissed him, very loudly and very sloppily, on the nose. As Molly watched and giggled he discretely wiped the kiss away using the back of his hand, then raised his eyebrows and winked at her "Lovely"

She'd said never again, not under any bloody circumstances whatsoever, but as he smiled at her now and her stomach turned those familiar somersaults, it crossed her mind that never is a very, very long time indeed.

-OG-

 _ **A/N: This was always intended to be a love story, just that, pure and simple, strangers to lovers to married HEA, and I know this finale is a bit long but I wanted to finish their journey, didn't want to cut bits, so I'm sorry to those who wanted Molly to go off on a mission or to do something different. For a start I don't know enough to create a convincing storyline about the routines and day to day life of the RAMC on missions, I only know what we saw in Series 1, which I thought was more about relationships than routines and I didn't want to create a whole new set of relationships for her so late on in the story.**_

 _ **Thank you to all you wonderful readers and reviewers out there who have been so supportive and encouraging over the last 16 months or so, especially to those who've never once missed with their kind words, you are what made this so much fun to do. As I said at the end of the story, never say never again because that's a long time for an addict, so, like all addicts I can only say not today nor tomorrow, but I don't know about the future.**_

 _ **I am intending to give my slum a bit of a clean, I can hear my hero's jaw hitting the floor with amazement even as I write those words, so I will, maybe just for the time being, I'm not sure yet, satisfy my addiction by reading other peoples' ff …..**_


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